


You Couldn't Last a Lifetime

by takeitto22



Category: Stranger Things (TV 2016)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Angst, Angst and Humor, Cancer, Dramedy, Eventual Romance, F/M, Fluff, Fluff and Angst, Humor, Past Child Abuse, Romance, Sick Character
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-12-29
Updated: 2018-01-24
Packaged: 2019-02-23 14:39:54
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 23,225
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13192212
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/takeitto22/pseuds/takeitto22
Summary: The last two weeks were a blur, despite feeling like time slowed down. Mike Wheeler visited doctors, had his blood drawn, went into giant MRI machines, and through it all, he felt numb. He was only sixteen, and even though there were so many things he never got the chance to experience, he felt as though he skipped four of the five stages of grief, and went straight to Acceptance. But the day of his first chemotherapy treatment, that all changed. He felt a warmness in his chest that he never felt before when a girl named El, a hospital volunteer, spoke to him for the first time. She made him smile. She made him laugh. She made him feel something for the first time in two weeks.“You’re so good at drawing horses, Emily!” he heard El exclaim. “It’s so pretty!”Mike smiled again and looked out the window, to the grey sky and pouring rain. “Pretty…”She sure was.





	1. The Volunteer

**February 1988**

It all started about two weeks ago—the last Wednesday morning of January. He had gotten on his bike, and right when he placed his foot on the pedal, a sharp pain attacked the small of his back. The quick spasm was so strong and surprising that it had caused him to topple over. He vaguely remembered his friend, Max (who was a long story), laughing at him as she reached her hand down to pull him up to his feet.

“What's the matter, Wheels?” she asked with a grin. “Has the coffee not kicked in yet?”

And he remembered chuckling, and replying, “It’s not that. It’s just…” he broke off with a frown.

“What?”

“You have this _huge_ zit on your face,” he said with a grin. “And, like, it looked like it was going to pop, so I dove out of the way. I didn’t want to get your pimple juice all over me!”

At that, he felt another sharp pain breaking his laughter. Only this time, it was his arm that was aching, courtesy of a right hook from the redheaded teen.

“You ass!” she cried with a laugh, as she bent down next to his mother’s car side-mirror to inspect her face for any form of acne. “Do I really have a fatty zit, though?”

Mike rolled his eyes. For all of Max’s talk of not being a “girly-girl,” she was sure being self-conscious. But then again, who wasn’t when they were sixteen years old?

“No, you don’t have a ‘fatty zit.’” He reached his arms around his back, and massaged his back with his fingers. “My back just started hurting, like, super bad, all of a sudden. It was weird.”

“You okay, now?” she asked as she led them out of his garage, reaching up to pull down the door.

“It’s still a little sore, but…” he broke off, and placed his foot on the bike pedal once more. No pain. “I guess I’m good now. Maybe I slept wrong?”

Max shrugged as she kicked off on her skateboard down the driveway. “Or maybe you’re having sympathy pains?”

“What?” he pulled ahead of her, and let her grab onto back rest of his bike, so that he could pull her down the street to Lucas’ house. “Why the hell would I be having sympathy pains?”

“Dude, have you seen your girlfriend’s boobs? Those things have to weigh a hundred pounds each! You should call them, ‘The Spine Destroyers!’”

Feeling his face warm in a blush, Mike decided to ignore Max’s quipping, and he swerved hard to the right, causing Max to let out a yelp in surprise. Yes, Raychael (his friends would all roll their eyes whenever they remembered how she spelled her name) had large…er…she was large chested.

There was definitely more to Raychael than that, though. She was smart, and she was…she was…she was bold! Yeah, “bold” was the right word for her. He remembered how after their Physics class two months ago, as he and his friend Dustin were leaving, she walked right up to him and asked him to the cheesy winter formal, The Snow Ball. Okay. She was _really_ pretty (long brunette hair, bright blue eyes, and a smile so confident that it was bordering on cocky) and _way_ out of his league. Sue him. He was a sixteen-year old, teenaged boy! What kind of idiot would decline an invitation to the Snow Ball with a girl like Raychael Hicks?!

And so they went to the dance. Even though Mike was the worst dancer ever put on the planet, once all the chaperones scattered to look for Troy Barnes for spiking the punchbowl, Raychael pulled Mike over to the bleachers to make out with him. That was pretty much the extent of their relationship: making out behind the bleachers, making out in the hallways during passing period, and just…making out. No more; no less. Their conversations were mostly small talk, but they may as well have been white noise to Mike. No matter how much he wanted to make an emotional connection with her, he found that they had absolutely nothing in common. Although she was the first girl that he had dated, deep down, he knew that their relationship was not going to last.

“Seriously, Wheels,” said Max, breaking Mike out of his revelry. “If Phileas Fogg made his balloons as big as her boobs, he would have been around the world in fifty days!”

Before Mike could retort, Max broke from his bike and made her way over to Lucas who was waiting for them on his bike at the end of his driveway. With a quick peck on the lips, and a quick, “Good morning, Stalker,” Lucas began pulling her to school. Ignoring the annoying discomfort in his back, Mike followed behind the couple as they all headed towards Hawkins High.

* * *

After dinner, Mike and Max were sitting around the table in the basement that was usually reserved for _Dungeons and Dragons_ campaigns, and doing their homework in a comfortable silence. His back was still sore, but again, it was more annoying than anything. It was annoying enough to distract him from his History book. He looked over at Max whose brows were furrowed together as she wrote about the rise of Julius Caesar in her notebook.

A little over a year ago, Mike’s parents (mostly his mother, Karen) decided to take in Max Mayfield. It would have been a huge understatement to say that her home life was not good. “Brutal” was a better word to describe it. Her step-father, Neil Hargrove, would constantly yell and beat her step-brother, and his biological son, Billy, for being twenty-three years old and unable to keep a job for longer than a week. In turn, Billy would take out his frustrations on Max.

Max would always insist that she could handle it. She was tough, and Mike would never disagree with that. The thing was, Billy was tougher—bigger, stronger, meaner, and was most likely the angriest man in Hawkins after shotgunning five cans of cheap beer. One night, Max had shown up at the Wheeler’s front door. Her right eye was swollen shut, blood was streaming from her nose, her left arm hung limply to her side, while her right arm was clutching onto her beloved skateboard.

Mike’s group of friends, the Party, had a lot of rules. The most important was that friends don’t lie. The next most important rule they had was: “When a Party member requires assistance, it is our duty to provide that assistance.” He repeated that to his mother, and he explained just how bad Max’s situation at home was. He thought that he would have to beg his parents to let Max stay with their family, but he was pleasantly surprised when his mother agreed with him.

In the emergency room that night, Mike had found out that he was wrong about Billy being the angriest person in Hawkins. His mother was. She berated Max’s mother, Susan (the only person in the Hargrove House to show up), with words that could pay for Mike’s college tuition if his family had a swear jar. It was so bad, that his usually apathetic father had to pull her away.

“If you’re not going to press charges to lock up that… _animal_ , then Maxine is going to stay with us!” Karen had cried, struggling against Ted.

That was how Max had come to live with the Wheelers. Mike’s older sister had left for college two Septembers ago, and Max moved into her old room. Nothing was _official_ —Max’s records would show that she still lived a half mile away with the Hargrove’s, but she was an honorary Wheeler. Quite frankly, Mike thought she was a better sister than Nancy and Holly. And because of their close proximity, he and Max had become best friends.

“You look like you’re about to write some epic sonnet or some shit,” Max said, breaking the silence. “What’s up with you today?”

“It’s my damn back,” Mike grumbled. “It’s bugging the bejesus out of me!”

“Here.” The redhead stood up, and waved a hand. “Get down on the ground; on your stomach.”

“Why?”

“So that I could pop it for you. You probably have a—”

“Yeah, no,” he interrupted, shaking his head. “I don’t want to be in a wheelchair for the rest of my life, so, no. You’re not popping my back.”

“I pop Lucas’s back all the time!”

“That’s not the only thing of his you popped!”

Face flushing red, she placed her hands on her hips, but not before punching Mike in the arm. “C’mon, Wheeler. Don’t be a pussy! I can’t stand your groaning and stretching for much longer! It’s irritating as hell.”

“Fine.” He rolled his eyes and made his way to the floor. “But if you paralyze me, you’re paying for my wheelchair! I want the kind with the motor. And it has to be green. And I want a cup holder, too!”

“Where does it hurt?” she asked, ignoring his quips and sitting on his backside. She placed her hand between his shoulder blades, and slowly moved down his spine. “Tell me when.”

“Right there!” cried Mike when he felt Max’s hand on the small of his back. “It hurts there.”

“Okay, so I want you to take a deep breath in,” she began. Mike felt her hands pressing down more firmly. “On ‘three,’ I’m going to—ugh! What the shit?”

The pressure from his back disappeared as Max pulled her hands away. However, she was still sitting on his butt, and he couldn’t see what was going on. “What? What happened?!”

“I don’t know,” she replied, “you have, like, this bump thingy on your back. Here.”

She grabbed one of Mike’s wrists, and guided his hand to his spine. He felt an odd lump. It wasn’t that large, but it was still disconcerting. Did one of his vertebrae pop out? But if it did, wouldn’t he be in agonizing pain? God, he wished he had signed up for Anatomy class instead of Physics! Before he could ask aloud if it was possible to have a popped vertebra without being in a lot of pain, he heard footsteps coming down the basement stairs.

“You guys?” his little sister Holly called down, “Mom wants to know if you want some cookies—What are you guys doing?”

The blonde seven-year old frowned at the sight of Max mounted on Mike’s ass. He could only imagine how strange this would look.

“Holly, come here,” said Max, waving her over, and ignoring Mike’s protests for her to get off his ass. “Want to feel something weird?”

“Okay.” Holly shrugged.

“Max, seriously!” He struggled, trying to buck Max off him. She wasn’t budging. “Get off!”

“Hush, Mike! Holly, feel this.”

Feeling a smaller pair of hands nudging his back, Mike sighed.

“Ew!” cried Holly, pulling her hands away and shaking them.

“Right?!” Max exclaimed excitedly. “‘Ew!’”

Both girls began to giggle, leaving Mike to roll his eyes. _Yeah, yeah…it’s all fun and games over here._  

Once she sobered, Max asked, “Hey, Holly? Can you go back upstairs and grab your mom? I think she should take a look at this.”

* * *

The last two weeks were…they weren’t really a blur. Everything seemed to move in slow motion, yet, Mike couldn’t recall much. He and his mother went to their family physician, who referred them to a chiropractor, who suggested that maybe Mike should get some X-Rays. When they went to Hawkins General, Mike remembered telling the doctor that along with a constant nagging in his back, he would sweat at night even though his room wasn’t hot at all. The next thing he remembered was getting carted off for a MRI, getting his blood drawn, and peeing into a lot of cups.

The following day, he heard the following words from his doctor: Malignant tumor, caused by a rare genetic disorder, would feel more comfortable operating if they were able to shrink it down, and…forty-five to fifty percent survival rate.

Then everything blended together. Sad faces that belonged to the Party and Raychael (who made out with him more than ever after finding out that his tumor wasn’t contagious), his father not looking at him at the dinner table, his mother constantly forcing a smile on her face whenever they made eye contact, faceless kids and teachers in the hall telling him that they’d think of him in their prayers, Nancy would call from college every night, and Mike couldn’t remember what they spoke about. At night, he’d lay awake in bed. There were so many things that he hadn’t done at that point in his life. He never went to Disney World. _Back to the Future_ _Part II_ was rumored to be coming out in a couple of years, and he was _really_ looking forward to seeing that. Would he live that long? If he did, would he even be strong enough to sit through it in a crowded theater? All he knew about chemotherapy was that it was hard on the human body. What was he going to look like bald?

It was raining on the day of his first chemotherapy session. The best Oncology unit for him was in Bloomington at St. Anthony’s Children’s Hospital, according to his mother. Where she heard that, Mike didn’t know, but he wasn’t going to argue with her. When they arrived, Mrs. Wheeler filled out Mike’s paper work and spoke to an Oncologist, who led them to the Chemo Room. It was painted periwinkle blue. Twenty padded, lime green chairs were placed along the walls, and about half of them were occupied by kids that looked way younger than he did.  They couldn’t have been more than ten-years old, by the look of them. But in all honesty, it was hard to tell. Most of them were wearing knitted hats, their pale-yellow cheeks swollen, but their bodies were thin.  As sad as the sight of the children was at first, when Mike sat down in the cushioned chair, he noticed that the kids across from him were either laughing or smiling.

That was when he saw her. A girl that looked like she was around his age was sitting on a rolling office chair, reading a book aloud to the children. Her brown, wavy hair was shining against the fluorescent lights. Occasionally she’d look up from her book, and her large brown eyes would shoot up in surprise at the kids, making them jump up in suspense. She would roll the chair to each child, always making sure to give each one a reassuring smile.

For the first time in two weeks, Mike felt his mouth curving into a smile. He was so distracted by the girl, he didn’t feel the pinch in his arm when the nurse put the needle in to administer the chemo. The way she read _James and the Giant Peach_ to the kids kind of reminded Mike of himself whenever he and the Party played _Dungeons_ _and Dragons_. She’d use a different voice for each character, or she’d change her inflection according to the actions—if something suspenseful was about to happen, she’d lower her voice.

“That’s all for today, you little monsters!” she said, laughing when the kids protested. “I’ll finish it for you next time. But I noticed that the drawings on the bulletin board have been there for _way_ too long! You know what that means?” She got off her chair and walked towards a desk at the opposite end of the room, reaching in the box that was resting on it and pulling out a ream of paper and a large box of markers. “We need to update it!”

“Michael!” Mike startled and turned to his mother, who, if he was being honest, he had forgotten was even there. She was holding up a plastic container. “Do you want some orange slices?”

He shook his head. “No, thanks.”

She reached into her bag and pulled out another container. “A sandwich?”

“No.”

“Cookies?”

“ _Mom_ ,” he said with a sigh, “I’m not hungry.”

Mrs. Wheeler frowned. “You barely touched your breakfast this morning. I really think you—Hello!”

He looked up to see who Mrs. Wheeler was talking to, and was able to hold in his surprised gasp when he saw it was the girl who was reading to the children. Her smile was shy, but there was something about it that was reassuring as well.

“Hi, um, I’m sorry to interrupt,” she began, but Mrs. Wheeler shook her head to indicate that it was fine. The girl held her hand out. “My name is El. I volunteer here a couple of days of the week, and I thought I should introduce myself to you two.”

“It’s nice to meet you, El,” said Mrs. Wheeler, taking El’s hand, “I’m Karen, and this starving boy over here is my son, Michael Wheeler.”

“I’m not starving, Mom,” he murmured with a roll of his eyes. He looked up at El, and shook her hand. For some reason, maybe it was the chemo, he felt his heartbeat quicken. _Weird_.

“Nice to meet you, Michael,” she said, letting go of his hand.

“Mike,” he corrected. “I prefer to be called ‘Mike.”

“Oh, sorry. Mike.”

He shook his head. “It’s fine. It’s, uh…it’s nice to meet you, too, El.”

Strangely enough, it _was_ nice. Somehow time wasn’t so blurry and muddled together as it had been for the last two weeks. Things seemed calmer, as though El was radiating serenity. Which was… _weird_. From the corner of his eye, he could see his mother glancing between El and him. He turned to her to see that she had an amused grin on her face—her first genuine smile in the last two weeks.

“So, El,” she said. “You said you volunteer here a couple of days a week? How has that been going?”

“Yes, I do,” El replied with another kind smile. “And I’ve been doing this for almost a year. You know, just…keeping the kids entertained and their parents calm.”

“That’s very sweet of you! I used to volunteer at hospitals when I was your age, but they never let me interact with patients.”

“Oh, hospitals usually don’t,” said El, tucking a strand of hair behind her ear, “But one of my friends’ father is a doctor here, and he vouched for me, so…”

“Well,” said Mrs. Wheeler, “you seem to be doing a good job, and the kids all seem to enjoy your company.”

“Thank you.” El’s cheeks turned the faintest shade of pink as she gave Mike another smile. “Um, so…I don’t know if you want to, but I didn’t want you feel left out.” She held up a piece of paper. “Do you want to draw something for the bulletin board?”

Mike chuckled, and shook his head. “I can’t draw, like, at all. I can’t, in good conscience, let you waste a piece of paper on me. The tree that gave its life to make that paper deserves better.”

“Aw, I’m sure you’re not that bad,” said El with a giggle. “Plus, this paper is recycled, so you don’t have to worry about Mr. Tree. He didn’t give his life in vain.”

“Recycled paper? Look at you, Ms. Fancy-Pants!” Mike laughed again, and he felt his stomach flutter at the sound of her laugh. “No, but seriously, I’m good. Thanks.”

“Oh, all right,” said El, playfully pouting. She turned to check on the other kids, who were all concentrating on their drawings. “I should get back and check on them.” She looked up at Mrs. Wheeler. “It was nice meeting you. If either of you need anything, just give me a holler.”

Mike and Mrs. Wheeler echoed their sentiments, and he watched El as she walked away. His mother was still grinning, looking giddy almost. “Look at you, flirting up a storm!” she whisper-exclaimed.

Feeling his cheeks warming, he rolled his eyes. “That wasn’t flirting, Mom.”

“Sure it wasn’t, dear,” she teased, looking over at El. “She seems like such a sweet girl, doesn’t she?”

“I guess,” he replied. “Or maybe she’s just, I don’t know, logging in some community service hours to look good in her college applications?”

Mrs. Wheeler shrugged. “I don’t think she’s doing this _just_ for the vanity. She doesn’t seem like the type.”

No. She didn’t seem like the type. Mike was able to see, up close, the kindness that shone from El’s eyes. Even watching her now, joking around with a little girl with a pink knitted hat, he could see that she really wanted to be there. That she enjoyed bringing smiles to the faces of the young kids, and it helped them forget that they were dealing with terminal illnesses. Hell, he almost forgot that _he_ was sick!

“You’re so good at drawing horses, Emily!” he heard El exclaim. “It’s so pretty!”

Mike smiled again and looked out the window, to the grey sky and pouring rain. “Pretty…”

She sure was.

* * *

It was a long time since she had a nightmare. Eight months since she heard the calm, eerie voice of the man who had called himself her papa up until she was seven-years old haunting her sleep. That was a good thing, she knew. Waking up peacefully was always a good thing. But waking up wasn’t the hard part. Falling asleep was. Not knowing whether or not she was going to have a nightmare so bad that she’d wake up with a start, feeling like she was locked up in that room again, was the hard part.

“You’re going to be safe,” she would remind herself every night. “You’re going to wake up in your comfy bed, in your pink and blue room that’s all yours, then you’re going to fix a cup of coffee and watch the sun rise over the lake.”

That was one of her favorite things to do—drinking a cup of coffee out on her balcony to watch the sun rise. Watching the rays of the sun bouncing off the lake behind her house, the bitter taste of the black coffee hitting her tongue, and the thought that today was a new day full of new experiences made her happy. Hop would always say, “Mornings are for coffee and contemplation.”

Despite everything she went through, she knew she was in a good place now. She didn’t need her therapist, Dr. Owens, to tell her that. What she went through was in the past, and although those horrid memories would sometimes haunt her nightmares, she survived. For the last nine years, since Jim Hopper found her in the woods, she was safe.

That wasn’t to say that the last nine years were nothing but sunshine and rainbows. The night that Hop had found her, El was hypothermic, malnourished, and was, in Hop’s words, “Hanging by a thread.” In the hospital, she was scared. What seemed like dozens of doctors were poking, prodding, and examining her, and she couldn’t understand what they were doing, but Hop never left her side. His rough, calloused hand was always holding her own soft, fragile hand.

At that point in her life, her vocabulary was limited. But she understood better than she spoke. The doctors would tell Hop that she suffered from numerous broken bones in the past, and they weren’t healed properly. At those words, the look on Hop’s face was mixed with sympathy and anger. Her right wrist was still a bit knobby, and it would hurt if she wrote too much or too fast. One of her knees would always shake if she stood for a long time, despite the leg brace that she had to wear for a year after she left the hospital.

The night before Hop would take her home, he brought some other visitors. A woman and a girl that was not much older than El. Without hesitation, the blonde-haired girl approached El’s bedside at a pace that made El shrink back into the bed.

“It’s okay,” the girl said. “I’m Sara. We’re going to be sisters!”

“Sisters?”

“Yeah, it means…” Sara broke off and looked up at Hop, who nodded in encouragement. “Sister means that we both have the same daddy and a mommy that will take care of us. Daddy and Mommy are going to take care of you now, so that means we’re sisters! And I’m going to take care of you, too! We’re a family!”

El looked up at Hop and the sandy-haired woman standing beside him. They were both smiling warmly at her. She turned to Sara, who was grinning toothily at her. And El’s own lips would curl up, and it was the first time she could remember smiling.

“Sister. Family.”

* * *

“You’re smoking again.” El didn’t need to look up from spreading butter on her Eggos to see Hop walking into the kitchen behind her. Unlike her, Hop was not a morning person. “And I’d thank you to not smoke underneath my balcony during my coffee and contemplation time.”

Hop rolled his eyes while El grinned cheekily at him. “Sorry for shitting in your cereal, kid. Had a late shift.”

“Gross!” El made a face at the visual and smacked Hop’s arm. “I hate it when you say that! You know how much I love Count Chocula, and you’re going to ruin it!”

“Chocolate cereal,” he murmured to himself while pouring a cup of coffee. “Kid, I’m going to come home from work one day, and I’m gonna find you in a diabetic coma.”

“Right. Says the guy who eats three glazed donuts every morning for breakfast.” She took a bite of the syrupy waffle and threw an accusatory glare at Hop’s direction.

“I do not eat three donuts for—”

“So you’re calling Flo a liar?”

Hop choked on his coffee. “You’re talking to Flo?”

El nodded. “Yes. I went by the station last night to bring you dinner.”

“You were at the station last night?” he asked, averting his gaze, and looking guiltily at his coffee mug.

She was really enjoying making him squirm. “I was, and Flo told me a hilarious story about this guy who lied to his daughter about working late. The daughter felt bad, because she knew how _much_ her father hated working late, and that he was probably going to eat a TV dinner that’s packed with an inhumane amount of sodium, so she decided to make him some roast chicken to bring by to the station. She slaved away in the kitchen, despite the fact that she had a big test for her Pre-Calc course that she should have been studying for. But when she got to the station, she found out that her dad was a liar, liar pants on fire!”

Because there was nothing worse than a cold, soggy Eggo, she took another bite while she waited for Hop’s response. He remained silent, and was staring into his coffee mug as though it was the most interesting thing in the world. But the look on Hop’s face, guilt, was familiar. A couple of years ago, El had come home crying from the library. Marissa, the librarian, who El considered to be a friend, was extremely short with her that day. All El had wanted was to see if any of the Judy Blume books were returned, then Marissa had snapped at her. She couldn’t understand why Marissa was being so mean, so when she told Hop about it, he just gave her a guilty look. Then, there was Peggy from the grocery store, and Lucy from the pharmacy…

“Were you out with the new librarian?” asked El. “Because I _just_ got her to like me!”

“No.” Hop sighed. “Listen, kid, I was out with an old friend.”

“A lady friend?” A glare from Hop was enough to make a grown man cower, but El maintained eye contact. That glare was her confirmation that he was, indeed, out with a woman last night. “Geez, Hop! You’re raising a teenaged girl! You’re setting a terrible example for me!”

Hop barked out a laugh.

“There’s no male equivalent for ‘slut,’ but there should be. And it should be called Jim Hopper. ‘Can you believe that John got with Carol _and_ Jeanine?! What a Jim Hopper!’”

Hop grimaced, looking like he wanted to be somewhere else, but El could swear that she saw his cheeks flushing red. “ _Fine_. I was out with a woman. She’s an old friend from high school.”

“Can you tell me who? I just want to know, so that I could avoid wherever they work this time next week.”

“I’ve actually been seeing her for the last three months.”

El’s mouth dropped. “And I’m just _now_ hearing about this?! _Hop_!”

“Oh!” Hop let out another laugh. “Like _you’re_ not keeping any secrets from me?”

“I have no secrets, old man!”

“What about that McHale kid that you’ve been hanging around since the summer?”

“ _Kyle?_ ” She let out a laugh. Kyle McHale once volunteered for a week with El at the hospital last summer, stocking the supply shelves, and organizing files. The two of them became friends after bonding over Madonna, day-time soap operas, and John Hughes’ movies. Kyle was pretty much El’s only friend in Hawkins, especially after Barb Holland, her former tutor, left for college.

“Sure.”

“I’m definitely not Kyle’s type, Hop.” She certainly didn’t have the right parts to be his type. But that was their little secret.

“So you’re not dating or anything?” Hop asked skeptically. “Aren’t you, like, fourteen? That’s when most girls your age start dating.”

“I’m sixteen, and you know that,” El laughed again. “Who would I date? I spend most of my time in Bloomington getting tutored by Aunt Becky, and then the rest of it is spent at the hospital! And judging from the stories you tell me about work, most of the boys in this town think cow-tipping is the funnest thing in the world! You really think I want to date a boy that thinks it’s fun to tip over sleeping cows?!”

“Point taken,” said Hop, downing the rest of his coffee. He reached over to grab his name badge to pin on his shirt. “You do know that if you ever start dating, you can talk to me about it right?”

“Yes,” she replied. She got up from the table to take her plate to the sink. “I promise that you’ll be the first to know should I decide to take in a suitor. You’ll also be the first to know if I fall in love with this boy, and decide to take my maiden voyage with him.”

“ _Jesus!_ Jane!”

El shuddered. She hated being called “Jane,” and Hop only called her that when she _really_ pissed him off. She definitely went a step too far with her sarcasm. “Sorry. Too far?”

“Yeah, about ten miles too far, kid,” he replied, walking over to grab his hat and jacket. “Listen, I’m going to be working late again tonight.”

“Like, _really_ working?”

“Yeah. And it’s supposed to snow this evening. If it does, I don’t want you driving in it. Call me, and I’ll come pick you up, okay?”

“Okay,” she said, still feeling bad about her joke. But she was still curious, and Hop never answered. He was pocketing his keys, when she called, “Who are you dating?”

He took a deep breath before responding, “Joyce Byers. She works at Melvald’s?”

“Oh! I like her!” Joyce always gave El her employee discount whenever she had to swing by Melvald’s General Store to pick up supplies for the kids at the hospital. Oh, geez…and now Hop was dating her. “I hope things work out with you two.”

“Thanks, kiddo,” he said. “I hope things work out, too. Okay, I really need to head out, now.”

“Wait!” El remembered that she had packed the chicken from last night, so that Hop could eat it for lunch today. She ran to the fridge, then to Hop, handing him the brown paper bag. “Here. It’s the chicken from last night, an apple, and carrot sticks. For lunch or dinner. I don’t want to find out that you were rushed to the emergency room with a severe case of ‘donut-titus.’”

Hop chuckled and ruffled her hair, making her feel like she was seven again. “Thanks, kiddo. Have a good day. I love you.”

“I love you, too, Hop. Have fun catching cow-tippers!”

* * *

El’s cheeks were still burning after she spoke with Mike Wheeler. She tried to take her mind off him, as she walked over to each child to study their drawings. The kids were between ages six through twelve, and she was genuinely impressed with how good their drawings were. They were certainly better than anything El could draw—but seriously, Mike Wheeler! He was _really_ cute, but in an unconventional way, and he made her wish that they could have met under different circumstances, like at the bookstore and they were both reaching for the same book at the same time, and their hands would accidentally brush against each other, and they’d both chuckle, and go out for coffee, and one cup of coffee would last for hours, and she’d give him her phone number, and he’d call her later that night to ask her to dinner, and wow! Her imagination was going a million miles an hour.

“Ms. Ellie,” a boy called Cooper said, “I’m finished.”

Thankful for the distraction, El looked at Cooper’s illustration of the DeLorean from _Back to the Future_. The eight-year old’s drawing was _very_ detailed, considering he used cheap markers. It was a spitting image to the car from the movie. Cooper was suffering from Osteosarcoma. The survival rate for the disease was tricky to grasp, as there were a lot of factors that would affect it. To El’s knowledge, the survival rate ranged from forty percent to eighty percent—a huge gap. She hoped that Cooper fell into the eighty percent range, because if he was able to draw a DeLorean this immaculate at the age of eight, she wanted to see what he would be able to draw when he was older.

“Holy moley, Cooper!” she cried enthusiastically. “This DeLorean looks so good, that if Michael J. Fox was here, he’d try to climb in!”

Cooper smiled bashfully while El was showing the drawing off to the rest of the kids. When she got to where Mike was sitting, their eyes met briefly. Her face was getting hot again, as Mike studied the picture with a grin on his face.

“My buddy Will is probably the best drawer I know,” said Mike, smiling warmly at Cooper, “But I think you just took that title from him, kid. That is seriously an awesome picture! If Will was here, he’d be shaking in his boots.”

Butterflies were swarming so chaotically in El’s stomach, that she felt like she would burst. _Oh my God, he is so sweet!_ _Calm down, El. Calm down. This is Cooper’s moment. Let him have this_.

“Cooper, do you want to take this home with you?” she asked, ignoring the slight crack in her voice.

Cooper shook his head. “It’s for the bulletin board, Ms. Ellie. I can draw another one at home.”

El squeezed his arm affectionately. “Well, thank you very much for sharing this with us. _Back to the Future_ is one of my favorite movies.”

The child’s usually pale-yellowish face suddenly turned pink. With one last smile, El turned to pin the drawing on the bulletin board. After checking to make sure that the picture wasn’t crooked, her gaze met Mike’s once more. The smile on his face was small, but shown in his eyes.

_Pretty_ …

A couple of hours, and two more chapters of _James and the Giant Peach_ later, the rest of the children pinned their illustrations on the giant bulletin as they headed home for the night. She would see most of them in the next couple of days or next week, but some of the kids were well enough that they only had to come in once a month for treatment. El hung back to admire the board, proud of all of the children and their drawings. But if someone were to twist her arm, Cooper’s was the pièce de résistance. Feeling someone standing behind her, she turned to see Mike staring at the bulletin board, smiling appreciatively. Realizing that this was the first time she saw him standing, El was surprised by how tall he was—nearly Hop’s height.

“Yeah,” he said, “I’m definitely glad that I didn’t draw anything. It would have ruined the whole aesthetic of this board.”

El giggled— _giggled_ (!)—and quickly cleared her throat. “I bet you’re really not _that_ bad at drawing.”

“You know how they teach you that art is subjective and that beauty is in the eye of the beholder?” he asked. El nodded. “Well, I’m so bad that I had to re-take my freshman art class in my sophomore year. If I don’t get into Northwestern, that’s why.”

“You want to go to Northwestern, too?” she asked, her eyes widening. After going on a campus tour with her former tutor, Barb, El wanted nothing more than to go to Northwestern.

“Yeah, I used to—I mean…” Mike’s eyes darkened as he rubbed his arm that the needle was attached to. “It’s, um…touch and go at the moment.”

El fought the urge to smack her forehead with the palm. The first rule that the nurses taught her was to not remind the children that they had cancer—try to keep their minds off it. “I’m sorry if I…”

“It’s fine,” he said. “I’m still processing it all. It’s weird. Like…I skipped the four of the five stages of grief and went straight to acceptance.”

“Can I ask what you have?” _No! You shouldn’t ask!_

Mike nodded. “Schwannoma neurofibrosarcoma. It’s a tumor in my spine.”

El bit her tongue to ask what the survival rate was, but Mike seemed to read her mind: “Forty to fifty percent survival rate. I have to do chemo, so that it could shrink enough for the doctors to remove it without causing nerve damage.”

She wished that her fantasy meet-cute of them reaching for the same book at a bookstore wasn’t a fantasy.

“My friend Max told me that I’m literally a glass half-full, and that if I was a Vegas game, I’d have the best odds, so there’s nothing to worry about.”

“Well, Max sounds like a smart guy,” she said.

“Girl.”

“I beg your pardon?”

“Max is a girl,” Mike replied. “Maxine.”

El felt her heart sinking. _Girl_?! Was she Mike’s girlfriend? “Oh…” El squeaked. “Sorry.”

Mike chuckled. “Don’t worry about it. With a name like ‘Max,’ it’s bound to confuse people.”

“Yes,” El agreed, trying to shove the mental image of a beautiful girl named Max in Mike’s arms away.

“But yeah,” Mike continued, thankfully unaware of El’s mini crisis, “Max is pretty much my sister, and she’s doing her best to keep me sane during all of this.”

_Sister?! Sister is good…you don’t date sisters!_

“So…um…” Mike was inhaling a deep breath. “I have to undergo treatment every Thursday. I was just wondering…um…do you usually, uh, volunteer on Thursdays?”

The urge to scream was so strong that El’s clutched her hands into painfully tight fists. Because she _did_ volunteer on Thursdays, and she wouldn’t have to change her schedule if she wanted to see Mike again. “Yes.”

“Cool.”

El grinned up at Mike. “Cool.”

Mike opened his mouth to say something, but what he wanted to say, El didn’t know. At that moment, a voice called out, “Michael!” Mrs. Wheeler was standing at the doorway, “We’re going to have to find a hotel. There’s no way that we’re going to be able to drive back to Hawkins in this storm.”

El turned to look out the window, and her jaw dropped at the sight of the snow falling. It was only raining not thirty minutes ago, and now, the parking lot was filled with snow covered cars. There was absolutely no way she could make it back home, either, in her small Volkswagen Beetle—wait, did Mrs. Wheeler just say that they lived in Hawkins?

“I live in Hawkins, too,” El squeaked, remembering that Hop was working tonight. His Blazer was an all-wheel drive, and he had snow chains. “My dad is the police chief, and I could ask him to drive you guys home, if you wanted.”

“You’re Chief Hopper’s daughter?” Mike asked, looking surprised.

“Oh, that would be lovely!” Mrs. Wheeler exclaimed, before El could respond. Was being the Chief’s daughter a bad thing? Sure, Hop _looked_ intimidating, but he was really nothing but a giant teddy bear. “You don’t think he’d mind, do you?”

“Not at all, Mrs. Wheeler,” El replied, still slightly worried at Mike’s reaction. “I’ll give him a call right now, and meet you both out in the waiting room.”

“Thank you so much, El! I want Mike to be as comfortable as possible after his treatment.”

Chemo was tough, El knew. She wanted to give an embarrassed looking Mike a reassuring squeeze on his arm, but they _just_ met. She didn’t know a lot about boys her age, if she was completely honest. After all, she was never around them, apart from Kyle. But she knew that it was probably inappropriate to squeeze someone she barely knew in the arm. So instead, she decided to try to smile reassuringly at Mike.

“You’re welcome, Mrs. Wheeler,” she said. “I’ll see you both in the waiting room!”

As El began to head toward the nurses’ station to use the telephone, she heard Mrs. Wheeler teasingly ask, “So what did you two talk about while I was gone?”

She also heard Mike groaning, “ _Mom_ …”

And she was grateful that her back was turned to them, since there was no way she could fight the wide grin from forming on her face.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is my first time writing any form of fiction in seven years. I forgot how fun it was! I hope you enjoyed reading this as much as I enjoyed writing it. 
> 
> I know you have a lot of questions, but I promise that everything will be explained. El's backstory will be further explored in future chapters. To include it all in one chapter would have been information overload, and a disservice to the character. 
> 
> Oh, and don't worry too much about Raychael. Love triangles are the worst and they're, in my opinion, a lazy way to generate drama. I only need her to make Mike realize that there are more to relationships than making out, and for Max to make boob jokes. 
> 
> If you liked the story, please let me know! Thank you so much for taking the time to read this. I hope I didn't waste your time!


	2. The Waiting Room

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I just wanted to thank everyone who read and left reviews on the first chapter! You guys are so great, and it feels wonderful to receive such a nice response!

When Mike was in the fifth grade, word got around the school (the whole town, actually) that Jim Hopper was moving back to Hawkins to become the new police chief. Now, Mike had no idea who Jim Hopper was. But he did hear the rumors about him: Jim Hopper had worked for the Chicago Police Department, and a couple of years ago, he found and adopted a young girl who was locked in a mentally unhinged man’s basement since she was three-years old. The only reason that story got back to Hawkins was because Jim Hopper was the star quarterback for Hawkins High, and he supposedly made the football team relevant for the first time in its history (which Mike cared very little about, and he didn’t get why retiring a uniform number was such an honor).

So when the parents heard that Jim Hopper was moving back, their kids at school began to talk about the mysterious girl that he adopted. Mike didn’t care to join in such gossip, because it was bad enough that Nancy’s room was across the hall from his, and he could hear her on the phone with Barb about how “Christina’s hair is totally fake, and everyone can see that!” or “Oh my God, did you hear about what Tommy H. and Carol did in the teacher’s lounge?!” He couldn’t understand what, why, or how any of that was important, especially when _Return of the Jedi_ was coming out in one more year. How did no one but him and his friends not care about whether or not Darth Vader was lying to Luke about being his father, or if Leia really was the “another” that Yoda referred to?

But in the spring of 1982, Jim Hopper’s daughter, Jane, joined his fifth-grade class. She looked beyond frightened, and normally, Mike would have introduced himself and welcomed her to Hawkins, just like he had done with Dustin the year prior. However, Mike was preoccupied that day: Later that night, he and his friends were going to learn how to play _Dungeons and Dragons_ from an older boy named Keith in exchange for a date with Nancy (which never happened). He had let Mike borrow some of his manuals, and Mike had become obsessed with the lore. While Mike was reading about a beast called the Demogorgan, he heard a tiny yelp and muffled giggles. Before he could process what was happening, Jane ran out of the classroom with at least three pieces of gum stuck in her hair. A group of girls that Mike suspected were the ones that threw chewed up gum in Jane’s hair were laughing. That set off a chain reaction, and soon the majority of the kids in the classroom were bursting with laughter. Mike found nothing funny about it.

The older someone got, the more they would forget how cruel children could be. That following Monday, Jane returned to class with a freshly shaved head. The popular girls giggled mercilessly, while some of the boys pointed unabashedly and laughed. Mike wanted to yell at them—tell them to shut up. It wasn’t Jane’s fault that she had to get her head shaved after all. She was new, and she was scared, and she deserved a friendly welcome as opposed to the hostile one she was receiving. But Mike was scared. He didn’t want the attention to be turned to him. He wanted to muster the all of the courage he had to tell the cool kids to shove it where the sun didn’t shine, then Troy Barnes called out, “Cancer girl!”

Then James joined in, “Cancer girl!”

More students started crying out, “Cancer girl,” and a chant began, despite Mrs. Hudson’s scolding. She had lost control of her class, and Jane had lost control of her emotions. With a sob and teary eyes, she left the classroom for the second time. Only she never came back. Mike wouldn’t see her again for about six years.

* * *

The waiting room was nearly empty, which was probably a good thing, as it meant there were no hurt children. Mrs. Wheeler had gotten off the phone, undoubtedly telling Mr. Wheeler, Max, and Holly that she and Mike were going to be late, and was now chatting with some nurses. Mike was sitting, his elbows on his knees, and his hand on his forehead. He felt feverish, claustrophobic, and a bit nauseous. He knew that chemo had side-effects, but he didn’t think they would come so soon after his first treatment. Was it all in his head? If he had gone through the treatment with no prior knowledge of the side-effects, would he be feeling anything at all?

Outside, the snow was showing no signs of slowing down. At a distance, the roadcrews were plowing the streets and dropping sand. From the window’s reflection, Mike saw El walking toward him with a bounce in her step. He wondered if it was appropriate to mention that he remembered her from Mrs. Hudson’s class—to tell her that he wished he could have stood up to those girls and the rest of the kids when they were making fun of her. But what good would that do? She was clearly in a better place now; on track to go to Northwestern, and she seemed happy. Mike was a terrible liar with a guilty conscience. Although it technically wouldn’t have been a lie if he neglected to mention that to El, but the guilt would consume him, and he would end up getting angry at himself and take it out on other people (he knew he had to fix that).

“Hey,” El called, approaching him, and handing him an apple juice box. “My dad said he should be here in about an hour, hour and a half. The roads are pretty bad.”

“Oh, um, thanks,” he said, feeling a little bad for the trouble. “I really, I mean, my mom and I really appreciate it. Kinda feel bad, though. That’s a lot of snow out there.”

El waved a hand, as though brushing his comment off, and took a seat across from him. “It’s, like, his job or whatever. Plus, I’d be stranded out here, too, if he didn’t come.”

“It’s his job to give snow-stranded people rides home?”

“Well,” El grinned, “I mean, he does take Old Man Earl home from the Hideaway when he’s had too much to drink. It’s the ‘ _serve’_ part in ‘to serve and protect.’”

Mike chuckled, as he poked his straw through the juice box. “I met Old Man Earl once at Benny’s Diner. He must have halitosis or something, because, wow! He was sitting at a table next to our booth, and his breath smelled like socks and old taco meat. So your dad is a hero. Truly.”

El choked on her juice, coughing and laughing at the same time. “Gross!”

“Sorry,” said Mike with a cheeky grin. He held up the pouch of cookies that his mother left with him. “Cookies?”

“I lost my appetite,” she replied with a playful glare.

“They’re peanut butter and caramel.”

El’s eyes widened, intrigued. “I never had that before.”

“My mom made them.” Mike held out the pouch to let her take a cookie. As El took a bite from the cookie, he grinned wider upon seeing her reaction. She looked surprised, then happy, and her eyes slowly closed as she chewed the cookie. She was…adorable.

“Oh my gosh,” she gasped. “This is amazing!”

Mike nodded in reply with a grin. Despite the juice, his mouth felt too dry for him to enjoy a cookie himself, but El’s reaction was satisfying enough. She beamed happily at him. However, the heavy guilt in his chest made him feel like he could drown as he remembered the look of anguish she had before she ran out of their fifth-grade classroom. He didn’t know why he wanted to bring up that old memory. Did he really think he could have stopped anything from happening? Maybe he could have...or maybe he couldn’t have. That wasn’t the point, though. He still felt _bad_ about what had happened almost six years ago. And if El volunteered on Thursdays while he was there, then he wouldn’t be able to look her in the eyes without feeling ashamed of himself. It just so happened that he really liked her eyes. He took in a deep breath—it was now or never.

“So after you mentioned that were the Chief’s daughter,” he began, “I, uh…I remembered that…I remembered you from Mrs. Hudson’s class. Fifth-grade.”

El looked at him in surprise and confusion.

“It’s just…that whole gum thing, and the name calling,” he continued, “I’m sorry that happened to you.”

El frowned. “You were in that class?”

He nodded.

“You didn’t spit gum in my hair, did you?”

“Oh, God, no! I would never—”

“Did you call me ‘cancer girl?’”

“Well, _no_ , but—”

“Then why are you sorry?” she asked, expression unreadable.

Mike sighed. Even _he_ didn’t know why he was sorry. She was right. He wasn’t the one who did those things to her. But…

“You just looked so… _sad_ ,” he finally replied. “I should have…I should have yelled at them to leave you alone, but I didn’t. I don’t know…it was just… _mean_. You didn’t deserve that.”

“Well, _yeah_!” said El. “It sucked. But you don’t have to _apologize_! We were, like, ten!”

“Yeah, but—” Mike stopped when El reached across and placed her hand on his knee. _Holy shit! Be cool, Wheeler. It’s just a hand on your knee._

“There is nothing you should be sorry for, Mike,” she said. “I’m over it now.”

Her eyes were shining with kindness, yet they were also intense, if that was possible. From the time in the Chemo Room till now, they had spoken for a total of thirty minutes, maybe, and Mike already knew that there was something special about her. She had captivated him from the moment he saw her reading a book to a group of kids. She was so… _kind_ and _positive_.

“The cancer girl thing bothered me more than the hair,” she said, shaking her head and sighing. “My sister died about a year before that…from leukemia. Getting called ‘cancer girl,’ I don’t know…it just reminded me of her. That’s why I left. My sister was my best friend, and…those kids made me so angry and so sad.” She looked like she was ten-years old again—hurt, heartbroken. Mike wanted to kick himself for even bringing this up, but she continued. “I missed her so much. I still miss her.”

He and Nancy were never close when they were younger. They fought a lot over the stupidest things. One time, Mike went on a ten-minute rant about why putting syrup on his eggs wasn’t gross, and that _she_ was the gross one because she got periods (he was twelve…of course he was going to make menstrual jokes no matter how disgusting they were). Another time, he stole four dollars in quarters from her piggybank just because it was her fault that she left it out in the open, and _Dragon’s Lair_ had cost fifty freaking cents. But the day Nancy left for NYU, she and Mike were crying as they were hugging goodbye. It was only then when Mike realized how _close_ they truly were. She used to bring him into her room whenever their parents fought. When Lucas caught the flu, Nancy took his spot in _D &D_ (complete with elf ears) because she knew how hard Mike had worked on that week’s campaign. Upon realizing that he was only going to see Nancy a couple of times a year, he realized how much he was going to miss her. All that said, he still thought Max was a better sister than Nancy. Her face wasn’t as annoying.

The point was, even if his situation was miniscule compared to El’s, he understood what it was like to miss a sister. If something bad happened to Nancy—bad to the point where he would never see her again, he would be beyond devastated.

Without thinking, Mike placed his hand over hers and gently squeezed. Her mouth opened slightly in surprise. When their eyes met, he felt her slowly turning her hand so that they were palm to palm. She gave his hand a squeeze, and Mike gave her a sad smile. Which she returned. “‘Sorry’ isn’t good enough. I know that. But I’m sorry.”

“It’s okay,” she said softly. “Thank you.”

Because holding El’s hand any longer would have been inappropriate (seeing as he technically had a girlfriend, regardless of their lack of an emotional connection), he reluctantly let it go. He may have imagined it, but he thought he saw a disappointed expression on El’s face. Trying hard to ignore the urge to hold her hand again, he instead reached for the sandwich his mother had prepared for him.

“You want to split a sandwich? It’s ham and turkey.”

“Okay,” she replied, chuckling at the sudden change of subject. After Mike handed her half of the sandwich, she chuckled again. “Your mom still cuts the crusts off your sandwiches?”

“Who said my mom made it?” he asked.

“This is a _good_ sandwich,” she replied, lifting the top piece of bread. “Like, it has lettuce and onions and the sandwich meat is folded all fancy!”

“So? I’m sixteen, El. I’m sophisticated.”

“You really made this?” she asked, looking impressed. It was adorable how much she was impressed by a sandwich.

“I never said I did,” he replied. “I only said that I’m sophisticated.”

“Wow,” she said in deadpan. Although her eyes rolled, she still laughed. “You’re an idiot, Mike Wheeler. A sophisticated idiot.”

“It takes one to know one, El Hopper,” he teased.

“All right. It’s settled,” she said. “We’ll be sophisticated idiots together, then.”

“I could live with that.”

Both teens grinned at each other before they fell into a comfortable silence, eating their sandwiches. It was surprising how comfortable El made him feel. Normally, Mike was reserved around people he didn’t know very well. It wasn’t that he was shy or anything. He could hold conversations, but it wasn’t _easy_ with most people. With El, it was easy. She matched him quip for quip. Not only that, but it wasn’t like she was waiting for her turn to speak. She _listened_ to him, and he genuinely wanted to listen to her.

He did want to get to know her better, and he couldn’t help but be curious. Though, he didn’t want to overwhelm her with a flurry of questions. He knew that Barb had tutored her not long after the ‘cancer girl’ incident, because Nancy would sometimes help plan her lessons. Were the rumors about her being kidnapped as a toddler true? That she was locked up in someone’s basement for four years after that with barely any human interaction? Was that _really_ why the Chief adopted her? He wanted to know, but at the same time, he didn’t. Although he was sure that she was as comfortable with him as he was comfortable with her, asking, “Hey, so were you really kidnapped?” not long after they even started talking was beyond stupid. Wastoid levels of stupid.

Not long after they both finished their sandwiches, Mike’s mother came to sit with them. He let them make small talk, but would sometimes interject before Mrs. Wheeler could say something embarrassing. As president of the AV Club, it still amazed him that someone figured out how to make a speaker tiny enough to put in a toy dinosaur’s mouth to make it roar. The mechanics alone were amazing. But El didn’t need to know that he named that dinosaur Rory, and he kept Rory on his bookshelf.

Like El had said, Chief Hopper arrived a little over an hour later. If it wasn’t for Jim Hopper’s police uniform, Mike would have guessed that the Chief wrestled grizzly bears into submission for a living. But Mrs. Wheeler wasn’t fazed at all, and she continued to talk about how Mike and his friends got second place in last year’s Indiana State Science Fair while they were driving back to Hawkins.

“Oh, yeah,” said the Chief. “I read about that in _The Post_. Your picture was in there.”

“It wasn’t that big of a deal,” said Mike, wishing that they were talking about something else.

He and El were in the backseat of the Chief’s Blazer. Even in the dark, Mike could see El smiling teasingly at him.

“What was your project?”

“They made a potato lamp!” exclaimed Mrs. Wheeler.

Mike groaned. It was _more_ than a potato lamp. They lit a freaking sixty watt lightbulb for three whole hours using thirty potatoes, four of which were in salt baths to help conduct more electricity, and forty yards of copper wire. Shoving a wire as delicate as copper through a potato was crazy difficult. Having to do that to thirty potatoes without damaging the wire was something only a masochist would do.

“No kidding,” said the Chief. “That’s actually pretty neat, kid.”

“Thank you,” said Mike, fighting the urge to explain just how _neat_ it was.

“El made a papier-mâché volcano once.” There was a hint of mischief in the Chief’s voice. “The house still smells like vinegar.”

“I wanted to demonstrate the effects of a super volcano,” El interjected. “That required a lot of baking soda and a lot of vinegar. Barb was impressed, by the way. I had to find the right container that would burst when the pressure was strong enough to not only burst out of the top of the volcano, but strong enough to burst out of the side, too!”

“That’s all dandy, but it doesn’t change the fact that our house smells like vinegar, and the kitchen counters are all covered in that gluey shi—” the Chief broke off, glancing at Mrs. Wheeler. Mike could tell he didn’t want to curse in front of her, which Mike respected. It was gentlemanly or something along those lines. “Stuff,” the Chief finished.

“ _Nerd_ ,” Mike murmured low enough so that only El could hear.

“ _Says the guy who made a potato lamp_ ,” she mumbled back.

“ _You’re just jealous, Ms. Super Volcano_.”

“ _Whatever you say, Mr. My Mom Still Cuts the Crusts Off My Sandwiches_!”

“What are you two giggling about?” asked Mrs. Wheeler, turning from the front seat.

“Nothing,” they replied in unison.

Mrs. Wheeler threw a knowing look in Mike’s direction. Maybe it was because she was his mother, but Mike knew exactly what she meant with that look: “You like El.” And normally, he would argue, and maybe it was the chemo’s fault, but Mike responded with a look of his own: “Holy crap. I _do_ like El…”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> While planning this story, I wanted to structure each chapter, so that half was dedicated to Mike's POV, and the other was dedicated to El's POV. Obviously, this chapter doesn't follow that structure. I started on El's section, but it just did not have the proper flow that I would have liked, so I'm saving that for the next chapter. 
> 
> Anyway. Thanks again for reading! If you liked, loved, disliked, or hated it; please let me know! That being said, I hope you enjoyed!


	3. Mad Max: Rage Warrior

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> After the newest deputy at Hawkins PD, Steve Harrington, tells El that Mike has a girlfriend, El has to deal with feelings she'd never felt before.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for the slow update! I tried to make it up to you by making this chapter way longer than I thought it would be.

Because of the snowstorm and Hop’s work schedule, El wasn’t able to pick up Lady Bug (her yellow, VW Beetle) from the hospital until the following Tuesday. Hop asked his newest deputy, Steve Harrington, to drive her up to Bloomington. She liked Steve. The moment she met him, he automatically felt like an older brother. El couldn’t explain why. He just felt _brotherly_ , if that was possible.

She had been in an exceptionally good mood since Thursday evening, and she suspected Mike Wheeler had a lot to do with it. There was something about him that made her feel happy. Whenever she thought about him, her lips would instinctively curve into a smile. Every morning, she would wake up wishing it was Thursday, and due to the schools being closed because of the storm on Friday and Monday, she’d sometimes contemplate walking over to Mike’s house. He didn’t live far from her, after all. But then, she’d realize that that may be inappropriate, and perhaps, bordering on stalker levels. Thursday was only two days away, anyway.

El would be the first to admit that she had absolutely no experience when it came to boys her age. She’d never gotten the chance, really. The amount of time she spent at a public school totaled to three hours—two of which were spent in a girls’ restroom crying in a stall until Hop came to pick her up. They had both agreed that it would be best for her to continue to be homeschooled until the following semester. However, when September came along, it was Dr. Owens who suggested that it would be best for El to be homeschooled for another year.

El enjoyed being homeschooled, especially after Hop hired Barb. Barb was an excellent tutor, allowing El to take things at her own pace. She wasn’t slow. She was the opposite, excelling at every subject. As she was doing so well, Hop didn’t see the point in stopping everything. It was what she had wanted anyway. In the end, she felt like everything worked out for the best.

But then she met Mike. Mike with his peanut butter and caramel cookies, and his fancy, no-crust sandwiches, and his potato lamp science projects, and his dinosaur named Rory, and his cute face, and his ability to make her laugh so effortlessly…it made her wish that she knew how to deal with these feelings that were so new, scary, and enthralling.

She was staring at the flashcards that she had made to go over some formulas for her Trigonometry exam that she was having this afternoon, but it was a moot effort. Not only was Mike on her mind, but Steve was listening to ‘Wake Me Up Before You Go-Go’ on the car radio as he drove. What person, in their right mind, would be able to concentrate on formulas and identities when Wham! was on the radio?

Bopping her head to the rhythm of the song, she began to absentmindedly doodle on one of the flashcards.

“Who’s Mike?” Steve asked, nodding toward the flashcard she was drawing on.

El looked down, surprised to see that she had written Mike’s name on the card. She really didn’t mean to do that! Her face was burning with embarrassment. “Oh! Um…no one?”

Steve gave her a skeptical look, which made her feel even more embarrassed and annoyed.

“Keep your eyes on the road, Deputy,” she told him, hastily shoving the cards into her bag.

“Is Mike your boyfriend?” he asked. At least his eyes were back on the road.

“No.”

“Then why are you writing his name down?” Steve was smirking now.

“It’s an acronym,” she lied lamely.

“What the hell is an acronym?”

El rolled her eyes. “It’s, like, an abbreviation. Like how NASA stands for ‘National Aeronautics and Space Administration.’ Or how NFL stands for ‘National Football League.’”

“Oh. What does MIKE stand for?”

“Uh…” She was a terrible liar even when she had time to think of a lie. She was an even worse liar when she didn’t. “It stands for…uh…‘Math Is…Killing…Everything?’”

“Right,” Steve responded skeptically. “You sure it’s not an… _acrocasm_ for Michael Wheeler?”

“What’s an ‘ _acrocasm_?’”

“You know, that thing with the NFL?”

“An acronym?”

“That’s what I said.”

“No, you didn’t!” she persisted, hoping to keep the subject of Mike as far away as she could. “How did you pass your police exam?! Half your job consists of memorizing acronyms and abbreviations!”

“Hey, kiddo, we’re not talking about me, here. We’re talking about Mike Wheeler.”

El frowned. She didn’t want to talk about Mike, but at the same time she did. “How do you know about Mike?”

“The Chief asked me about him,” Steve replied. “Said he gave him and his mom a ride home.”

“Wait—why would Hop ask you about Mike?” she asked.

“I used to date his sister. I kind of know him.”

“Oh,” she said. Hawkins was a small town, after all, but she was beginning to think it was strange how she had been connected to Mike through his sister for years. First, she met Barb, who was Nancy’s best friend. Then, Hop hired Steve who was Nancy’s ex-boyfriend. It was curious, to say the least. “And what did you say?”

Steve shrugged. “Well, I asked him why, and he was like, ‘El has a crush on him.’”

“I do not!”

“He said something about how you were giggling around him, and you looked like you were going to cry after you guys dropped him off,” said Steve, grinning and clearly enjoying making El squirm. “I took him at his word. He used to be a big city cop, after all.”

“I wasn’t going to cry,” she huffed.

Steve continued, “I told your dad that Mike seems like a good kid. He was kind of a dick to Nancy, but that’s just how little brothers are.”

El nodded. _And he was funny, cute, smart…_

“Listen, I didn’t tell the Chief this, but,” Steve sighed, looking serious for the first time, “I thought you should know, since you like him, and I dunno...I guess I don’t want you to get hurt or something.”

“What?”

“I caught him at Lover’s Lake a couple of months ago,” he said, genuinely looking apologetic. “He was with a girl, and they were…”

“Oh…” Something pinched inside El’s chest, and her heart was racing.

“I mean, they weren’t—” Steve took his hands off the wheel and made a crude gesture with his pointer finger and his opposite hand. “—or anything like that. They were just making out. I let them go with a warning, and I don’t even know if they’re still together!”

The good mood that she was in since Thursday quickly vanished. For the past four days, she thought that there was a chance—a _small_ chance—that Mike had liked her. After all, he did look like he genuinely cared about her feelings when she shared how she missed Sara. He also shared his food with her, too. But then she remembered how quickly he let go of her hand, when she _clearly_ signaled that she wanted to continue holding his hand by squeezing it. Maybe Mike was just a genuinely sweet and caring person. He just wanted to make her feel better. There was no reason for him to mention that he had a girlfriend, because he obviously didn’t feel the same way that El did for him.

She wanted to cry, but damn it, she wasn’t going to. There was no way she was going to let the first time that she cried over a boy be about the boy she liked having a girlfriend. She also wanted to scream and hit something, but again, she wasn’t going to. 

“Sorry, kid,” said Steve, patting her shoulder. “But like I said, maybe they’re not together anymore?”

“It doesn’t matter,” she said, realizing, “Mike is a patient at the hospital. I don’t think it would be appropriate for me to have a crush on him, or date him, or whatever.”

She glanced at Steve, who looked like he wanted to argue, but he just shrugged. “I don’t want to see you get hurt, but…”

“Don’t worry about it, Steve,” she said. She wanted nothing more than to change the subject.

Steve shook his head. “Just listen. If you think he’s worth it, don’t give up. There’s nothing worse than wondering, ‘what-if.’ This is coming from a guy that fell for one of the Wheeler kids, too. We broke up almost two years ago, and I still regret not fighting to make things better. It’s a shitty feeling.”

She wanted to argue that she had only known Mike for four days, whereas he dated Nancy for years (Barb wasn’t too thrilled when they started dating, and El remembered her complaining about it a couple of years ago), but she kept her mouth closed. Mike also had cancer, and was already going through enough. There was no reason for her to add to his stress. Maybe his girlfriend was nice. Maybe she was helping him through everything he was going to. El sighed. Friends, she decided. Being friends was better than nothing, even _if_ there was a part of her that did want to fight for him.

“Something for you to think about, I guess,” said Steve.

El shrugged, but she still looked crestfallen. “Maybe. I don’t want to, I don’t know, make things harder for him. He has cancer, Steve. I shouldn’t even entertain the thought of…”

“You can’t help who you like, kiddo. I know it feels shitty, but I think you’ll regret it if you don’t let him know. Even if he doesn’t feel the same way, at least you could sleep at night knowing you tried.” Steve pulled into the hospital parking lot, and El pointed to where she had left her car. “Lady Bug is probably going to need a jump.”

“Probably,” she agreed. “Do you have jumper cables?”

“Yup.” Steve put his car in park. As he reached down for the lever to pop open the hood, he stopped, giving her a knowing look. El raised an eyebrow in question, and he shot her a smirk, nodding at the road behind them. “Want to go across the street and get some hot cocoa, first? My treat.”

* * *

Ever since he saw _Empire Strikes Back_ , Mike had always wanted to be Han Solo.  It wasn’t just because Han was a cool space-pirate that turned into a reluctant hero that sacrificed himself for his friends. It was because Han got the girl. In Mike’s opinion, Han Solo’s and Princess Leia’s romance eclipsed all the other fictional romances that ever existed. Despite being royalty, Leia treated Han as an equal, and vice versa. Sure, they had their squabbles, but that was what made their relationship more real. Leia helped Han reach his true potential without changing him completely. They supported each other—Han willingly let himself get frozen in carbonite, and Leia risked everything to save him. Despite their never-ending banter, they loved each other for who they were.

Mike felt like an asshole for even thinking this, but he would never let himself get frozen in carbonite for Raychael.

El was a different story. If Mike was Han and El was Leia, he wouldn’t have said, ‘I know,’ after she told him she loved him. He would have said, ‘Holy shit! Wow! _Really_?! That is _so_ cool! I love you, too!’ That was all hypothetical, of course.

The fantasy vanished as he began to dry heave over the toilet bowl, feeling whatever was left in his stomach begin to rise in his throat. The side-effects of chemotherapy, he discovered, were very real. He had been having trouble keeping his food down for the past week. Adding to that were the constant headaches and fevers that made him want to vomit even more just so that he’d feel something else. But when he did vomit, he wished for the headaches to return. It was truly a no-win situation.

‘Forty to fifty percent survival rate’ was a mouthful. Mike decided that a happy medium was needed, so he decided to go with ‘forty-five percent.’ But when he _really_ thought about it, that sounded a little morbid. It was a reminder of the things he never got to experience. He’d never seen the ocean, for example. He’d also never broke up with a girl, which was his current predicament. To be fair, he’d never had a girlfriend before Raychael.

Whether the chemotherapy shrunk his tumor or not, Mike would be getting surgery in six months. The possibility of snipping the wrong vein, vessel, or nerve was still high, but there would be less to snip. Also, if the surgeons managed to cut the tumor out, there was still the possibility that it could grow back. Either way, he could die, and he did not want to spend the last six months of his life worrying about a girl that he didn’t like romantically.

He was positive that he liked El. Like, like-liked her. It was pointless. Even if there was a chance of her feeling the same way, Mike didn’t want to pursue anything more than friendship. Not while he was feeling like this. It wasn’t fair to put her through that. Maybe if he survived his surgery, he’d see where things went.

The point was, and he had a point, he like-liked El, and it was not fair to pretend to like Raychael. That meant that he had to break up with her.

Nancy went through a similar situation a couple of years ago (dating a guy called Steve that she didn’t like as much as she liked Will’s older brother, Jonathan), and it was a mess. A lot of sighs, tears, arguments, and longing looks were exchanged, and it made Mike never want to deal with a romantic relationship. But alas…hormones.

He walked over to the sink to wipe and rinse his mouth with the mouthwash he kept in his backpack, dried off with some paper towels, and looked at himself in the mirror to psych himself up. After today’s round of chemo, he decided, he was going to break up with Raychael.

“I was thinking,” said Max when he stepped out of the restroom. She drove him to his appointment today, since Mrs. Wheeler had to take Holly to her dance class. “If Troy ever messes with you, you could just puke that radioactive vomit all over his face.”

“My puke isn’t radioactive.”

“Your mom said your bodily fluids can be toxic when you’re going through chemo,” said Max. “Remember? She said the doctor said that you had to pee sitting down in case it splashes on something!”

“She did?” Mike didn’t remember that at all, but he didn’t remember a lot of things after his initial diagnosis.

“Yeah!” she replied. “You’re not peeing sitting down, are you?”

He rolled his eyes at the ridiculousness of their conversation.

“You’re not! Dude, what if your pee splashed on a spider, and now, it’s all radioactive, and it bit someone?” she asked excitedly. “Oh, man! There could be a Spider-Man in Hawkins as we speak! You better hope he ends up being a good guy. If he turns out to be an asshole, that’s on you, Wheels.”

“You’re so _weird_ ,” Mike murmured. He led the way to the Chemo Room before he stopped. “Hey, so the kids in there are pretty young. Watch the language, okay?”

Max gave a halfhearted salute to show that she understood. “Before we go in there, I figured out what we could name your tumor.”

“What?”

“Richard,” she answered. “We could call it ‘Dick’ for short.”

Mike laughed. “Good call.”

“Prepare to die, Dick,” Max said, glaring a hole into Mike’s back. “You’re going to be chloroformed in your sleep, wake up in a dark, dingy basement with no idea how you got there. You try to get up, but you realize that you’re strapped to a table. There’s a group of men, lined up single file, and wearing pig masks. One by one, they beat you with socks filled with bars of soap. Suddenly, you feel a terrible pain in your stomach, like something is clawing through your intestine. Then, you feel the pain inch its way closer to the surface, right around your ribs, and you scream. You can’t bear the pain anymore, and you want to die. Your chest bursts open! What little blood and oxygen that’s left in your body keeps you alive long enough for you to see that a Xenomorph burst out of your chest, and you watch it scurry away to kill the rest of your family!”

“Jesus…” Mike looked at Max with disgust and worry, while the redhead seemed pleased with herself.

“We should rent _Alien_ this weekend,” Max suggested brightly. “I haven’t seen it in forever!”

Mike stopped walking when they approached the door into the Chemo Room. He clenched his hands into fists to stop them from shaking. El would be on the other side, maybe reading a book to the kids, or playing a game with them. It would be his first time seeing her since last week, and he was afraid that she would know just how often he pictured her smiling face. Max didn’t seem to notice that he had stopped in his tracks. She held open the door, gesturing at him to walk into the room. He gulped. _One foot in front of the other_.

“Welcome to Thunderdome, Dick,” he heard Max mumble behind him.

He didn’t pay attention to what she said next. Although, if he had to guess, she was probably murmuring more violent and disturbing threats to Dick the Tumor. Instead, his eyes landed on El at the Nurses’ Station, piling some board games and books. _God, she’s pretty_. Her hair was tied back in a ponytail, and she was wearing a grey sweater and a pair of blue jeans. Mike’s heart lifted when she laughed at something a nurse said, and he couldn’t wait to be laughing with her soon.

“Is that her?” asked Max, nudging his ribs with her elbow.

“Yeah.” His mom would not shut up about how ‘adorable it was watching Mike flirt with a girl,’ all week despite Mike’s protests that he wasn’t flirting.

“She’s cute,” said Max, looking impressed. “Way out of your league.”

Mike opened his mouth to tell Max to shove it, but she gave a small push forward. “Go say hi to her, numb nuts. Tell her that you’ve been listening to The Smiths and The Cure all week because you missed her so much.”

“That wasn’t why I was listening to them, asshole,” said Mike. Sure, their songs were more on the emotional side, and he often wanted to tell the singers to grow a pair, but they were legitimately great bands. And yeah, whenever _Lovesong_ by The Cure came on, he thought about El sometimes, but that was nobody’s business but his own.

“ _Language_!” She shoved him a bit harder this time towards El. “Go say hi.”

Taking in a deep breath, Mike stepped forward, grinning when El looked over at him. His hand raised to a wave, but dropped it when she just gave him a tight-lipped smile that didn’t reach her eyes and turned her attention back to the nurse.

_What the hell?_

Mike was not a proud guy, but his pride took a hit in that moment. He was expecting her to flash him her million-watt grin that could light up even the darkest caves in the world. Instead, he got a smile akin to when you accidentally made eye-contact with a stranger in an elevator. His shoulders sagged in defeat. If his heart had a funny bone, this would be what it felt like if someone was beating it repeatedly with a hammer.

Instead of heading toward El, he changed his trajectory towards the oncologist in the room. He handed her a card, and she motioned for him to take a seat next to that Cooper kid who drew the DeLorean last week. Ignoring the sting of the catheter as the oncologist placed it into his arm, Mike let out a huff. He wasn’t mad—not really. Disappointed. Because all week, all he wanted to do was to see El. She was the one that got him out of his ‘feeling numb all the time’ slump, after all.

“Dude,” said Max, sitting down in a chair next to his. “I think she just glared at me! Literally gave me the chills!” She waved her arm at his face to show him her goosebumps. “What the hell did I do?”

He wanted to tell Max that she probably imagined it. That El didn’t have a mean bone in her body, and if she _really_ glared at her, then it was clearly an imposter wearing an El mask from _Mission: Impossible_. But maybe he didn’t know El at all. Just because she was nice to him for a couple of hours didn’t necessarily mean she was a nice person all the time. That made him feel angry, because five minutes ago, he was comparing her to Princess Freaking Leia!

If she was going to glare at his friend, well, then he wasn’t going to give her any of the peanut butter and caramel cookies he asked his mom to bake. _Nor_ was he going to give her the recipe that he had her write down as well. Was he being childish? Probably, yes, but his day was already bad enough, due to finding out that his urine and vomit could be toxic. He wasn’t going to let El ruin it even more.

Or maybe he was. Mike would sometimes let his anger get the better of him, and it would often end with him saying something that he would regret later. As he opened his mouth to tell Max that maybe El had a giant stick up her ass, the words wouldn’t form. Instead, he said, “I don’t know. I think you imagined it. You have a weird imagination.”

God, he was chivalrous.

“I wasn’t imagining it!” Max persisted.

“She wasn’t imagining it,” another voice said, surprising Mike. He turned to find who the voice belonged to. Cooper was looking back at him, nodding. “I’ve never seen Ms. Ellie look at anyone like that before. It was scary.”

“ _Thank_ you!” Max reached over to give the boy a high five, and throwing a smug look at Mike.

“Ms. Ellie is the nicest person ever,” said Cooper. “I don’t know what you did to make her angry, but you should apologize.”

“That’s the thing, big guy,” Max began. “I don’t know what I did.”

Mike rolled his eyes. “Why does it matter if—”

“You could ask her,” Cooper interjected. “We learned about conflict resolution at school. Sometimes someone can be mad at you, and you won’t know about it, but they’ll be mean to you anyway. It’s best to ask why they’re being mean to you. Then, you can work things out together!”

Mike and Max glanced at each other, the latter looking amused while the former was perplexed. This Cooper kid could put any psychologist out of business. With a sly grin, the redhead began to push herself out of her seat, but Mike grabbed her wrist. “Don’t talk to her!”

“Why? This kid has a point!” She gestured over to Cooper, who was sipping his apple juice, but nodding in agreement. “It’s bad enough society thinks girls can’t get along, and there’s little Miss Candy-Striper over there, proving them right!”

“Why do you have to bring society into everything?” Mike was exasperated. This morning, he was actually glad that Max would be accompanying him to his appointment. Now? Not so much. “You have _no_ friends that are girls! Maybe _you’re_ the problem!”

“Way to kick a girl when she’s down, dude,” said Max, looking hurt. “I just want to see if I did anything to offend her! If I didn’t, then she has no reason to be such a bitch to me.”

“ _Language_!” Mike flicked his eyes warningly toward Cooper.

“I know what ‘bitch’ is,” said the kid.

“What are you? Five?” asked Mike. “Watch the language, dude!”

“I’m almost nine.”

“Well, either way. You’re way too young to be using that kind of language.”

“You sound like your dad,” Max called, out of Mike’s reach.

She was heading toward El, and Mike wanted to yell for her to come back. Before Max could get any closer, El called out, “Does anyone want me to read _The Boxcar Children_?”

All the kids cheered and clapped, while Max turned to Mike. Her eyes were wide and gleeful. “ _Boxcar Children_?!” she mouthed as she walked back over to her seat. “I fucking _love_ this book! Haven’t read it in years!”

“ _Jesus_ , Max! _Language_!” He turned to Cooper, pointing a finger in his face. “Don’t _you_ repeat that word, kid.”

Cooper rolled his eyes before he turned his attention to El. “I know what that means, too.”

Mike shot a glare at Max, but she wasn’t paying attention to him. Instead, she rested her chin in her hands, looking eager, while El began to read the story aloud.

* * *

She didn’t mean to glare at her. She just wasn’t expecting Mike to bring her along with him. When Mike walked into the room, a redheaded girl walked in behind him. The first thing El noticed was that the redhead, who she assumed was Mike’s girlfriend, was _pretty_. Like…extremely pretty. Despite promising herself that she would be totally normal today around him, when Mike showed up with his beautiful girlfriend, anger swelled in El’s chest.

Why did he even bring her here? Was it so he could flaunt her around in front of El? To rub it in El’s face, so to speak? ‘Oh, my name’s Mike, and look at my hot girlfriend. She’s _so_ much hotter than _you_!’ That was when it happened. El’s jaw clenched; her brows pulled together; and her eyes narrowed into angry slits. Then their eyes met. The redhead’s smile faded, exchanged with a confused frown. Immediately, El’s heart sank with guilt. Apart from dating Mike (and El couldn’t blame her), the girl did nothing wrong.

In that moment, El concluded that she was a terrible person. She should have been happy that Mike had a pretty girlfriend that came with him to his chemo sessions. Instead, she was moodily piling board games in no particular order, sulking like there was no tomorrow.

This feeling—jealousy—was new to her, and she didn’t like it one bit. It sucked, and it made her stomach hurt. She decided that if jealousy was an object, it would be a hornet. Hornets were useless assholes that stung people because they had nothing better to do. Just like jealousy. To avoid getting stung by a hornet, the best course of action was to avoid the hornet altogether. So El decided that the best way to avoid jealousy, was to avoid Mike’s girlfriend. And pretend that she didn’t notice Mike holding his girlfriend’s hand. _Ugh_!

She huffed, grabbed a book off the counter, and pulled a chair around. _Don’t look at Mike and his hot girlfriend. Focus on the children._

She looked at the cover, then put all her focus on Emily, because she was adorable and drew the cutest, chubby horses. “Does anyone want me to read _The Boxcar Children_?”

“I fucking _love_ this book!” El heard a voice come from where she knew Mike was sitting. “Haven’t read it in years!”

While El frowned at the use of curse words in front of the kids, she couldn’t stop herself from smiling and appreciating Mike’s girlfriend’s enthusiasm.

* * *

“That’s it for today, you little monsters!” she called out. It was something of a catchphrase for her, and she always said it when she was done reading. As usual, the kids groaned and whined, but Mike’s girlfriend whined the loudest.

El was starting to hate how much she was liking that girl.

At first, it was annoying. The redhead was whisper-commenting throughout the story. However, she clearly had no idea how loudly she was whispering. When Henry brought the rest of the children some bread and cheese, the girlfriend would whisper, “Let’s get a loaf of bread when we leave!” When the youngest Alden child, Benny, cut a ‘W’ into Watch, the dog’s fur, the girlfriend chuckled and whispered, “Benny…you rascal!” Soon, her comments and genuine laughter became… _endearing_.

While grabbing the pile of board games from the counter, El felt a tap on her shoulder. She turned and gasped when Mike’s girlfriend was face to face with her. “Did I do something wrong?”

While she technically hadn’t done anything wrong, El didn’t answer. Instead, she just gave a confused look in response. Strangely enough, El appreciated how quickly the redhead got to her point, with no preamble.

Just as quick as her appreciation came, it disappeared when the redhead just raised an eyebrow and gave her a challenging look that clearly said, ‘I can play this game, too.’

El knew how to play the silent looks game. She was the master at it. With a father like Hop, she had to be. However, there were children that she needed to think about, and she didn’t want them to get restless. “I’m sorry. I don’t know what you mean.”

God, she hated lying.

“Really?!” The redhead looked incredulous. “The second I walked in here, you looked at me like you wanted to kill me!”

“Well, that would be murder. Which is illegal, so I would never do that,” said El, mentally smacking herself on the forehead. Now was not the time to be a smart ass. But again, it was hard not to be with a father like Hop. El sighed, and held up the board games. “Listen, I have a job that I need to do. Let me get the kids set up, and we can talk later.”

The redhead opened her mouth to respond, but Mike’s voice called out, “Max! What the fu—?” he broke off, awkwardly looking around at the younger kids. “Er…fudge? Leave her alone!”

_Max?_ The same Max that Mike had said was like a sister, which made El conclude last week that she wasn’t Mike’s girlfriend, because no one dated their sisters? So was she not his girlfriend? El hoped she wasn’t his girlfriend, because _yuck_! Who described their girlfriends as being like a sister?

Max rolled her eyes, and turned back to El. “We’re going to talk about this later.” It didn’t sound like a threat; more like how a disappointed parent would speak to a child when they were out in public.

“Fine.” She felt disgusting, pathetic, and grossly possessive, as she decided that Mike wasn’t gross and would never describe a girlfriend as being like a sister. She was basically treating Mike like he was the last pieces of Eggos in the box that she would never share with anyone. El shook the pile of games that she was holding, making a peace offering. “Do you and Mike want to play any of these?”

“No,” Max gave her a skeptical and confused look, “Mike and I have homework we need to do.”

“Okay. Um…let me get these kids set up, and we’ll talk when you want to have a break.”

Max opened her mouth to say something, but Mike came out of nowhere, pulling his IV pole beside him. “Max, leave her alone!” As he took hold of Max’s elbow, Mike gave El an apologetic look. “Sorry about this.”

Mike pulled Max away before El could say anything. It was tough to ignore the stinging in her chest. At the shock of thinking Max was Mike’s girlfriend, El just realized that she had barely acknowledged him. What the hell was wrong with her?! She handed _Candyland_ to a boy named Justin as a group of children gathered around to play. She could hear Mike’s hushed voice as he was scolding Max about how she was distracting El from taking care of the kids, and embarrassment flooded through her.

What would she need to build a flux capacitor? If she could, she’d build one, steal some plutonium, install it in Lady Bug, and go back in time to an hour ago to start this encounter all over. But there was no way Lady Bug could go eighty-eight miles per hour…

Normally, she’d be playing games with the kids, telling corny jokes, making book recommendations, or even helping with homework. But today…she just couldn’t do that. While it would have been easy to point her finger at Mike and say that it was all his fault for making her feel so out of sorts, she couldn’t do that either. It was her own problem. They were all her problems: jealousy, guilt, disappointment, and anger all rolled up into one terrible demon, and she didn’t know how to deal with it.

Apologies were a good start. She certainly had to apologize to Max. That dirty glare was unwarranted. Mike deserved one, too. At the end of the day, Mike was a patient at this hospital, and she made a promise to do her best to take care of everyone she could. There was no reason for her to barely acknowledge his presence just because he had a girlfriend. Yes, she had a crush on him, but crushes were innocent, weren’t they? It wasn’t like she was going to ‘steal’ Mike from a girl she didn’t even know.

She sighed, deciding to apologize to Max first, since Mike was helping Cooper with his homework. God, Mike Wheeler…he was so sweet! _Cool it, El_ …

When she approached, she made sure to smile apologetically to both Mike and Max. After a quick, friendly ‘hello’ to Cooper, she turned her attention to Max, who was looking up from her chair curiously.

“I, uh…” She broke off, not wanting to do this in front of Mike. Or Cooper, for that matter. El’s attention was focused on Max, and she nodded her head behind her, toward the door. “Do you want to talk?”

Mike’s eyes darted back and forth between El and Max, looking as though he was trying to figure out something to say. The redhead’s gaze was skeptical, as though she was expecting El to laugh in her face and cry, ‘not!’

“Yeah,” Max replied after what seemed like an eternity. She closed her book and set her pen down. “Let’s talk. We’re just going to talk, loser,” she added when Mike opened his mouth to protest.

El just smiled apologetically, trying to convey how sorry she was and that they’d talk later. Mike was clearly debating, internally, whether he should follow them or not. El hoped he wouldn’t; not only out of embarrassment, but the hospital crew didn’t like it when patients were walking about. As though reading her mind, Mike rolled his eyes, and turned back to help Cooper with his homework.

Max was already waiting for El outside the room, her arms were crossed, her expression clearly saying, ‘get on with it, then.’

El shut the door behind her. It was now or never. “I just wanted to apologize. For earlier. I didn’t mean—”

“I just want to know what I did,” said Max. “Like, I just walk into the room, and the first thing I see is you glaring at me!”

El grimaced. “Um…you didn’t do anything wrong.” She drummed her fingers against her thigh. Was telling one of Mike’s friends that she had a crush on him a smart thing to do? Max would surely tell Mike, wouldn’t she? Of course, she would. Then, Mike would just look at El in disgust any time they were in the same vicinity. She would have to change her days at the hospital, which wouldn’t be ideal, as she had a good rapport with the Thursday kids. Or maybe should and Hop could just move to the city. No, that wouldn’t work. He was dating Joyce Byers, and seemed happy for the first time in a very long time.

“Then why did you look at me like you hated me?” Max’s voice broke El’s train of thought.

“Okay, this is, um…really… _embarrassing_ , but…” she took in a deep breath. “I-really-like-Mike-and-I-thought-you-were-his-girlfriend.”

El wasn’t surprised by Max’s look of confusion. The words spilled out of her so quickly.

“Say what?”

“I thought you were…Mike’s girlfriend.” El squeezed her eyes shut, totally prepared for the inevitable, cruel laughter that would soon expel out of the redhead. But nothing happened. Her eyes slowly opened, and Max was staring at her with a raised eyebrow.

“Um…who says that I’m not Mike’s girlfriend?” asked Max, challengingly.

El’s eyes widened in shock; her whole body tensed. First, why the hell would Mike describe his girlfriend as being like a sister?! Was it something that the kids her age were saying these days? If so, gross. Secondly, what little relief she had at the thought of Max not being Mike’s girlfriend was gone. She’d just admitted that she _liked_ —no— _really_ liked Mike to his girlfriend! The first chance she got, she was going to run over to the university a couple of miles away and research quantum physics, nuclear fusion, how to safely handle plutonium, and turn Lady Bug into a time machine.

Max broke into laughter. “I’m just fucking with you! Oh my god, you should have seen your face!”

El let out a squeak in response, still trying to process what the hell just happened.

“Mike isn’t my boyfriend!” Max cried, still laughing. “He’s pretty much my brother! That would be disgusting!”

In the span of just over an hour, El had pretty much experienced every emotion imaginable, and she wasn’t sure if she could take anymore. She was angry, annoyed, embarrassed, relieved, happy, sad, and most of all, confused. She didn’t realize how tense she was, all her muscles were strained since the moment she saw Max earlier, and her bad knee began to shake, and she had to grab the wall for support. Max’s smile vanished, and she grabbed onto El’s arm, looking concerned.

“You’re not going to pass out, are you?” she asked. “I’m sorry if my joke—”

“No,” said El, sitting on the ground and massaging her knee. “It’s my knee. Sometimes it gives out. Patellar fracture from when I was a kid,” she added, noting that Max’s look of concern was still there.

“Oh, I’m sorry. Do you want me to go ask for a wheelchair, or something?”

El shook her head. “I just need to give my muscles a break for a few minutes. I’ll be fine.”

Max sat down beside her. El wished that she would stop looking so concerned. “Okay. I thought…I’m sorry about that joke.”

“I’m sure I’ll laugh about it tomorrow.”

Both girls sat in silence for a moment. El stretched her leg out to see if the muscles in her thigh had loosened.

“So…Mike, huh?”

El glanced over, expecting to see a shit-eating grin, but the look on Max’s face was soft—almost caring. El nodded. “Yeah. It’s stupid.”

“Nah,” said Max. “Don’t tell him I told you this, but a lot of girls at school have crushes on him.”

“They do?” She wasn’t sure whether Max’s words were supposed to be comforting or not. They were leaning more toward uncomfortable. Of course, girls at school liked Mike. He was handsome in an unassuming way that made him charming at the same time. Also, he was genuinely nice. The kind of kindness that was sincere, not expecting anything in return.

Max nodded. “I’m not saying it to make you feel bad, or whatever. I just wanted you to know that liking him isn’t stupid.”

“I get it. Thanks.”

She could feel Max’s eyes studying her as she continued to massage her leg. The silence was starting to become awkward, and El was beginning to wish Max would just go away.

“You’re a really good reader,” said Max. “It reminded me of being in kindergarten again. In a good way. I used to love story time. My teacher used to be so enthusiastic when she read to us, and it was just the best! You reminded me of her.”

“Thank you.” El smiled, appreciating the kind words.

“Do you want to be a teacher? You’re pretty awesome with the kids.”

“I’m not sure,” she replied. “Sometimes, I do. Other times, I want to be a child psychologist. One of these days, I’m going to have to flip a coin to make the decision. What about you?”

Max shrugged. “I don’t know. It feels like I started high school, like, a day ago, and I had all the time in the world to figure out what I want to do. Then I realize that I’m almost seventeen, and I need to start sending out college applications and writing stupid essays.”

“What are you good at?”

Max thought for a moment. “Skateboarding. Even then, I’m probably not that good compared to the people on the west coast. Maybe if I stayed in California, I’d be a lot better. Anyway. I’m not good enough to get a sponsorship or make a living.”

“You don’t know that,” said El. She knew nothing about skateboarding, although she always wanted to try hanging off the back of a truck like Marty McFly. “There probably aren’t many professional skaters that are girls, I’m sure, so there’s always that. Or maybe you could design a skatepark, or teach kids how to skateboard?”

“I’m a terrible teacher,” Max said with a laugh. “One time, I tried to teach my boyfriend and his friends how to skate. It was a disaster! Mike was there, and he rolled down the smallest hill in the world, screaming his head off. All he had to do was bail off the board. He wasn’t even going that fast, but he was too scared. He ended up face-planting into a parked car and getting a broken nose.”

El laughed at the thought of Mike, his gangly arms flailing, as he rolled slowly down a hill.

“Then, my boyfriend, Lucas, ended up twisting his ankle. Dustin got road rash on his ear—don’t know how that happened. Will jammed his finger, and thought he’d never be able to draw again. Drama queen...”

“Not to sound mean, but I mean…those guys built a potato lamp for a science project,” said El, remembering Mrs. Wheeler’s story from last week. “I’m sure even the best skater in the world couldn’t teach them either.”

“They’re a bunch of goobers,” Max said, smiling fondly at the thought of her friends. “Like, they can be really athletic when they want to be—Lucas can hop over any fence, climb the tallest trees, he can sneak in my room without a peep, but God forbid you put him on a wooden board with wheels.”

“Your friends sound fun!”

“Yeah,” the redhead agreed. “They make living in Hawkins more bearable. What about you? Who do you hang out with?”

“Honestly, I don’t really have that many friends. Homeschooled,” El replied. “I hang out with Kyle McHale, sometimes. He volunteered here for a few days.”

“Oh, I know him. Nice dude. He and Will have been hanging out a lot.”

There was a knowing tone in Max’s voice, and El grinned at her.

“Do you know?” Max asked.

El nodded. “Is Will?”

Max nodded. “I don’t know about you, but good for them. Living in a small farming town in the Midwest, it can’t be easy to be gay.”

“Agreed,” said El. “Everyone deserves to be happy.”

“Yeah. So do you hang out with anyone else?”

El shook her head. “I used to hang out with Barb Holland a lot. She was my tutor, but we were also friends. Um, do you know Steve Harrington?”

Max nodded. “He used to date Mike’s sister. I liked him!”

“Yeah, he works for my dad, now, so sometimes I’ll hang out with him around the station. But that’s about it.”

“Oh, well, you should hang out with us!” Max exclaimed. “Mike and I are going to meet Lucas at Benny’s tonight. You should come with!”

“I don’t know…” It felt like it would just be an awkward situation. She just told Max that she liked her friend, after all. Max was extremely nice, but what was stopping her from telling Mike that the awkward hospital volunteer with a bad knee had a crush on him?

“C’mon! It’ll be fun!” Max nudged her gently with her elbow. “Greasy burgers, even greasier fries, the milkshakes alone are worth it! Plus, you get to sit next to _Mike_!”

El tried her best to scowl, but her blushing cheeks betrayed her. “Doesn’t Mike have a girlfriend? Steve said he caught them making out at Lover’s Lake a few months ago.”

“I forgot about that!” Max snorted. “I bet Mike totally shit himself. Anyway. He does have a girlfriend.”

She gave Max a moment to get her to try to understand her predicament, but when the redhead didn’t speak, El began to explain, “It would just be weird, wouldn’t it? I feel like it would be weird if I hung out with him when he has a girlfriend.”

“Then don’t make it weird. Duh.” Max rolled her eyes. “Okay. Just because Mike has a girlfriend doesn’t mean you can’t be friends with him, right?”

Being friends was better than nothing, she knew. But El couldn’t help her lips from pouting. Hop always said that she had a terrible poker face, and that anyone that played poker against her should be locked in jail for theft. She couldn’t help that she had an expressive face.

Max clearly noticed the sad look on El’s face, as she let out a groan. “Mike mentioned to me that he was going to break up with his girlfriend. Probably tonight after we eat.”

“What?”

“Yeah, I mean, their relationship is…” Max drifted off, looking up to try to think of the right word, “Okay. So, Raychael asked Mike to the Snow Ball back in November, and since Mike’s a nice guy, he said yes. That’s probably not the only reason he said yes. She has…” Max held her hands far out in front of her chest, making a clenching motion. “Astronauts could probably see them from space.”

El self-consciously crossed her arms across her chest that would most certainly not be visible from outer space.

“I’m not saying Mike’s shallow,” Max added quickly. “But, come on, he’s a teenaged dude. Anyway, he hasn’t been happy with her ever since the Snow Ball, but since he’s a dweeb, and he’s too _nice_ to do anything about it, he just put up with her. You know, that whole being nice thing? At some point, trying to be nice can make you an asshole, don’t you think?”

“I guess?”

“Anyway, so last week, Mike’s mom was gushing about you, and how sweet you were, and all that shit. The whole time, Mike was smiling like this,” Max’s smile was overexaggerated, looking more like a person that was constipated than smiling, “like all longingly, you know? And his mom would constantly tease him about you, and he’d turn all red. Then, on our way here, he just casually mentions that he’s going to break up with Raychael. And…listen, don’t get your hopes up, okay? This is just a theory.”

“I won’t,” she said, although her hopes were up. She had a feeling she knew what Max was going to say.

“My theory is that Mike’s going to break up with the Twins of Everest because he has thing for you.”

El’s heart skipped a beat and she didn’t bother trying to stop her lips from curling into a smile. There was a pleasant warmness in her chest, and her head felt light. Just the possibility that Mike liked her…wow…it was elating! She’d never felt anything like this before.

“It’s just a theory,” Max reminded, and El nodded. “But just come out with us later. If my theory is wrong, I promise you, Mike will be one of the best friends you’ll ever have.”

Maybe Max was right. If Mike didn’t like her back, it wouldn’t be the end of the world. It would only feel like it for a couple of days, maybe. She could live with that. Steve’s words from a few days ago echoed in her mind: _‘If you think he’s worth it, don’t give up. There’s nothing worse than wondering, “what-if.”’_

“And I’m a pretty good friend, too,” Max added. “Don’t get me wrong, I love those guys, but the nerdy testosterone can get overwhelming. There are only so many times an argument about who the real hero of _Star Wars_ is between Luke and Vader can be interesting.”

El chuckled. “I can tell that you’d be a great friend. And I _really_ am sorry about glaring at you earlier. It’s just…Mike…and these feelings...they’re new, you know? I didn’t exactly have a normal childhood.”

“Don’t worry about it!” Max got to her feet, and offered a hand to El, pulling her up. “Even if you went to public school, I’m sure you would’ve reacted the same way. Fucking feelings, you know? They just make people act irrationally. They’re the worst.”

“Yeah, but at the same time, they’re not,” El grinned, remembering how warm and safe she felt when Mike had briefly held her hand last week.

Max nodded in agreement. “Not to make things awkward or anything, if you don’t want me to, I won’t tell Mike that you have a thing for him or whatever. Us girls gotta stick together, right?”

“Right,” El said thankfully. “Thank you.”

With a nonchalant shrug, Max grinned. “So are you going to Benny’s with us, or not?”

* * *

Before Sara got sick, Hop and Diane considered moving from Chicago to a smaller town. El was too young back then, but when she got older, she realized that she was the reason they were considering the move. When Hop found El, and arrested Brenner, he became a huge story in Chicago. Brenner was the lead scientist in a government-funded laboratory. He was well respected, because to the public, that lab was tasked to create cheaper, cleaner methods of distributing energy. So when word got out that the highly respected scientist, who helped create hundreds of jobs, kidnapped a toddler-aged girl, trapped her in a basement for four years, and was arrested by Hop, the media had a field day.

Hop didn’t like the attention, and El couldn’t blame him. She remembered him carrying her out of the hospital, her head covered in a sheet so that the dozens of reporters couldn’t see her. She remembered how she couldn’t leave the house for weeks, because news vans would crowd up in front of it. When they finally left, it was normal citizens that would bother them. That had gone on for years, and El knew that she hated the attention as much as everyone else in the Hopper household did. One night, Hop had set El and Sara down and told them about Hawkins. He promised that things would be calmer when they moved there.

But before anything happened, Sara got sick, and they couldn’t leave.

It was only a month after Sara’s funeral. El remembered Hop and Diane’s yelling. She remembered wishing with all her might that Sara wasn’t gone. Because if she wasn’t, then she and El would hide in their blanket fort together, and Sara would continue teaching El math to drown out the fighting.

Eventually, Hop took El to Hawkins. Diane didn’t go with them, and El was now missing two people in her life. They lived in a cramped cabin that Hop said belonged to his grandfather. The cabin was far from town. For weeks, El felt like a prisoner again. Hop would go to work every morning, leaving El alone in the cabin for hours. When he came home, the only acknowledgement she got from him was him putting a TV dinner tray in front of her, and asking if she ate lunch. She understood now that he was grieving, but back then, she didn’t know what was wrong with him.

With weeks of grief, frustration, confusion, and anger welled up inside her, one night, she snapped. She had yelled like she’d never yelled before, she tossed the TV dinner at Hop. In turn, he snapped. Normally, she would have cowered at his raised voice, but not that night. That night, he was Papa. If she escaped him once, she could escape him again. And so she ran as fast as she could in the rain, which was no mean feat, as she had just gotten her leg brace removed months prior.

When she could no longer ignore her knee’s protests of pain, she collapsed, and cried. She wondered if the tears would ever stop; if she’d stop missing Sara; if she’d stop hating Hop for his neglect; if she’d ever smile again. It could have only been minutes later, or maybe it was hours later, she felt someone picking her off the ground, asking if she was okay. The only response she gave was her sobbing.

The next thing she remembered was that she was hungrily chomping on a cheeseburger as a tall bald man, who’d frightened her at first, was studying her with kind eyes. He asked questions, but she didn’t answer. Sure, she hated Hop at that moment, but the man was still a stranger…even if she took food from him. She was hungry, and the burger had smelled so good!

Before she could take another bite from her burger, the bald man took it from her hands. Before she could angrily snap at him, he said, “I need to know your name, so that I could call your parents to let them know you’re here.”

El only glared in response.

“If you tell me your name, I’ll give you this burger back,” he said, waving the burger, causing the smell to make El’s mouth water. “Maybe I’ll throw in some ice cream, too. Sound good? I’ll start. My name is Benny, and you are?”

“Eleven.”

“Eleven?”

She only pointed at herself in response. Sara had called her Eleven because Hop had found her on the eleventh of November, and she refused to be called Jane as it reminded her too much of Papa.

“Do you have a last name?”

She didn’t want to answer, but she was so hungry, and the burger was so good that she had to. “Hopper.”

“Holy shit,” he murmured softly, looking surprised. “Is Jim Hopper your dad?”

El nodded.

“What happened? Did you run away?”

“Fight.”

“So you guys got in a fight, and you ran away?”

El nodded, feeling the tears beginning to brim in her eyes. “Hates me. I’m not Sara. Not his real daughter.”

“Hey, that’s not true,” Benny said softly, lowering himself so that he was eye level with her. “I knew your dad for a long time. He’s one of my best friends, and he’s a good man. He’s just sad right now. You know what ‘sad’ means?”

She nodded again.

“Sometimes it can last for a long time,” Benny explained. “Sometimes it’s easy to fight sadness. Sometimes it’s hard. But your dad is fighting right now, and he’s going to win. He’s a fighter, and he’s never lost a fight. This just might be a long one. It just seems like he hates you, because he’s sad. That won’t last long.”

El took it in, slowly understanding. “What if sad wins?”

“It won’t. It never does.”

“I’m sad, too. All the time,” she said. “Will I beat sad?”

“Yeah, kid! You’re a fighter. Just like your old man.” Benny handed the burger back to her, and smiled. “Smile looks good on you.”

She looked at him in confusion, not realizing that she was mimicking Benny’s smile.

“You’re smiling. See? You’re already winning the fight!”

* * *

El and Mike followed behind Max as she led them through Benny’s Diner to a booth near the back. El slid into the booth to let Mike sit next to her. Her feelings were slightly hurt when she saw Max wordlessly direct Mike to sit next to El. Why didn’t he want to sit next to her?

Before they left the hospital, Max had told Mike that the reason El had been cold toward them was because she had mistaken Max for someone else—one of the girls who had spit gum in El’s hair. El could only guess that Mike had told her that story. However, Mike understood. Despite feeling guilty about the lie, El also felt gratitude toward the redhead. There would be a time when she would confess to Mike how she felt, but that time wasn’t now. She would wait awhile after Mike broke up with Raychael. After all, making a move right after a breakup would not be a wise decision.

“That’s Lucas over there,” said Max, pointing toward the kitchen, before calling loudly, “Hey! Stalker!”

El turned to see a handsome, dark skinned boy look up from washing the dishes, and quickly making a shush gesture in Max’s direction that only made the redhead laugh.

“He’s cute,” said El, quickly regretting the words as she saw Mike rolling his eyes. Should she tell him that he was cuter? She wanted to, but….no, that would just be…no.

“Right?” asked Max excitedly. “Just don’t tell him that. I don’t want his ego getting inflated. I mean, come on, dating me is already a huge ego boost as it is!”

“Christ, Red! Keep it down, will ya?” a deep, booming voice called. El looked up and smiled upon the sight of Benny. “This is a family establishment! We use indoor voices in here!”

“‘Family establishment?’” Max scoffed. “You consider a place where old dudes gather to talk about how back in their day, their form of entertainment was rolling a wooden wheel down the street with a stick a family establishment?”

“Hey, those guys pay my bills,” Benny laughed. He looked over at El and his eyes widened. “Ellie Hopper! It’s been a long time, kid!”

El stood and reached over Mike to give Benny a hug. It had been awhile since she’d been here. She and Hop used to come at least twice a week, but then they found out that he had high cholesterol, so her visits weren’t as frequent. Apart from her breakfast cereal and Eggos, there was no junk food at home. She really, _really_ , missed greasy, delicious burgers and fries.

Seeing Benny always made her happy, though. And he had been right—she did win the fight eventually. As did Hop.

“Yeah, sorry,” she said, releasing the hug. “But it’s not my fault that my dad’s a fat ass.”

“We can’t all eat like teenagers forever,” said Benny, shaking his own gut with his hands. “How is the old man?”

El shrugged. “Same as always. Surly. When he’s not being surly, he’s busy being the neighborhood bicycle.”

Benny let out a booming laugh, and El was pleased to see that Mike was laughing as well. She’d been longing to hear that laugh all day—all week, actually.

Benny clapped a hand on Mike’s shoulder. “Good to see you, too, Wheeler. You holdin’ up alright?”

“Doing my best,” Mike replied.

“That’s what I like to hear!” cried Benny, as he gave Mike a gentle shake that made him chuckle. “I’m pulling for you, kid.”

Mike’s response was a tight-lipped smile in thanks. A response that El had seen a lot of the other kids do. It must have been tiring to have people constantly tell you that they’re pulling, or praying, or fighting for them. It was a kind gesture, but hearing it so many times would be deafening.

“Hey, can Lucas take his break?” asked Max, poking Benny in ribs.

“I don’t know, Red. We just got through the dinner rush, and the kid is on a roll washing the dishes.”

Everyone glanced back at Lucas who was feverishly scrubbing a large pile of plates and trays, while Max whined. “Why are there so many dishes? How much can a bunch of old farts eat?!”

“It’s not my fault the old farts ain’t dying.”

“Can I help him, then?”

“You want to help him?”

“Yeah. It’s a win-win situation!” Max exclaimed. “I get to see my boyfriend, _and_ you get free child labor!”

Benny shrugged. “Who can say no to that? Go ahead. Break any of my plates, and I’m not gonna make you anymore milkshakes, got it?”

“Yes, sir!” Max cried, sliding out of the booth. “You guys can eat! We’ll be back soon!”

El watched as Max impressively, and gracefully, leaped over the counter. Benny clapped his hands together. “So what can I get you two?”

Mike turned to El to indicate that she could order first. Although the gesture was small, it was large enough to make her blush. “Um…Double cheese, fries—I won’t be mad if a couple of onion rings slip in there, and a…chocolate, no, strawberry milkshake, please!”

“A woman after my own heart,” said Benny. “Wheeler?”

“A plate of fries and a strawberry milkshake, please,” Mike replied.

“That’s it?” asked Benny, looking slightly crestfallen. “What? My burgers not good enough?”

Mike chuckled, but El noticed that he was rubbing his arm where the catheter was in. “Sorry. Not really hungry at the moment.”

“It’s all dandy,” said Benny. “Alrighty, I’ll be right back with your food. Hang tight!”

El watched as Benny stalked away. Mike began to fiddle his thumbs around.

“Hey, so I—” she began.

“Do you want me to move to the other side?” Mike asked at the same time.

“No!” El blurted, _way_ too quickly. _Oh, crap_ … “I mean, if you want, but…I think you’re fine. Where you are, I mean!”

A part of her was relieved to see his cheeks reddening, but the other part realized that her cheeks were probably a deeper shade of crimson, considering how hot they were. Mike glanced at her, and quickly looked away. Then she realized that she had been sweating a lot at the hospital. It was hard not to when she was as tense as she was before she talked to Max. Did she remember to put on her deodorant earlier? Oh god…did she smell? Was that why Mike wanted to move to the other side of the table?

“Well, Max and Lucas will probably be back soon,” he reasoned. “If I sat on the other side, they’ll probably make me move again. I’ll stay here. If that’s cool with you?”

“Yes! Cool,” she said, again, too quickly. “No point in having to move twice, right?”

“Right.”

They fell into silence again, and El took it as a chance for her to calm herself before she spoke. It was dark outside, so the only thing she could see in the window apart from some streetlamps was her own reflection, which she studied. She had to make sure nothing was on her face, after all.

“Um, so how was your week?” asked Mike.

“It was fine,” she replied, shrugging. “Didn’t really do much. I had a Trig test that I thought I was going to bomb.”

“How’d that go?”

“Not as well as I hoped,” she replied, frowning. “Eight-two percent.”

“That’s not bad at all,” said Mike with a scoff. “It’s still a B!”

“I know it’s not bad, but I’m trying to keep my GPA at 4.0,” El explained. “I need to get at least ninety-six percent on my next test and a ninety-two on my final if I want an A in Trig. _Ugh_! I hate math!”

“I could help you out,” Mike suggested, “I was actually pretty good at Trig.”

“You already took it?”

Mike nodded. “Last year. Don’t want to brag or anything, but I aced it.”

“Wow, first potato lamps and now I hear that you took Trig in your sophomore year,” El teased. “You really are a nerd!”

Mike rolled his eyes, but grinned anyway. “It takes one to know one, Ms. 4.0 GPA. For Northwestern?”

“Their acceptance rate is only ten percent! It’s crazy competitive!” El cried, adding playfully, “And now that I think about it, you’re the competition. I don’t know if I trust you to help me with math.”

“Your loss, Hopper,” he said, huffing and crossing his arms.

El laughed, bumping her shoulder into his. “But seriously. If you don’t mind, and if you’re not busy, I’d really appreciate your help.”

“I don’t mind at all. When’s a good time for you?”

He was smiling. Despite exhaustion being evident, his eyes were still warm and full of life. She grinned back and shrugged. “I’m pretty much free everyday but Tuesdays and Thursdays.”

“Then do you want to meet on Monday? Around 4:30? Maybe we could meet here, since the library will be closed by then.”

“Sounds good,” said El coolly. Although, internally, her heart was beating a mile a minute from excitement. Which was silly, considering all they were going to do was work on formulas. “So how was your week?”

Mike shrugged. “Okay, I guess.”

“You guess?”

“Yeah,” said Mike, rubbing the back of his neck. “I don’t know. Like, my doctor suggested that I go see a therapist to help me deal with everything.”

“Oh.” Self-consciousness crept up El’s spine. There was always a stigma when it came to mental health. She went through three years of therapy with Dr. Owens, and it wasn’t something she liked to share. 

“I know that there’s nothing wrong with therapy, and that in the long run, it really does help people,” Mike began, leaning back when a waitress arrived with their food. They both thanked the waitress, and when she walked away, Mike continued, “Anyway, therapy is out of the question. My dad says he won’t pay for it. Instead, he’s been renting the _Rocky_ movies, and I’ve been watching those for the last couple of nights.”

“ _Rocky_?” El raised an eyebrow, as she placed a few of the extra onion rings that Benny snuck into her pile of fries into her burger. What did boxing have to do with therapy? “Does he want you to be a boxer?”

Mike laughed. “He wants me to watch them so that I would be inspired to fight the cancer. Because despite the odds, Rocky always persevered.”

El got where Mike’s father was coming from, but the whole thing was absurd to her. His own son was going through a difficult time, and his solution was to show him some boxing movies to demonstrate heart and the will to move on? Even Hop wouldn’t have been that dense.

“Is it helping?” she asked. “Watching those movies?”

“I actually got into the first movie,” replied Mike. “Which surprised me, because I hate all sports equally. By the time we got to the second movie, I got distracted by Rocky’s drooping lip. The next thing I knew, Rocky ended the Cold War because he beat some roided-out Russian dude.”

“Does he really?” she asked incredulously. El was a huge fan of fiction, but ending a decades long war over a boxing match had to be the most ridiculous thing she had ever heard.

“Like, it’s implied. Heavily.” Mike took a sip of his milkshake.

“Yikes,” El chuckled. “My dad made fun of me because I cried at the end of _E.T._ He was like, ‘You’re crying over a brown puppet whose fingers look like poo logs?’ He has no room to talk, though! He loves those _Rocky_ movies!”

Mike laughed, choking a bit on his milkshake. El gently rubbed his back to help ease his coughing, but he just held out a hand, shaking his head. “I’m good. Thanks.” He took a quick sip of water. “Did your dad actually say ‘poo logs?’”

El nodded. “He’s like a thousand-years old, and he has the sense of humor and vocabulary of a ten-year old.” She watched as Mike chuckled and popped a fry into his mouth. He chewed slowly, as though he had no appetite. And there she was, with her burger already half gone. “So watching a movie about a droopy-lipped boxer hasn’t been helping?”

“I honestly don’t know if I need help,” he said. “I’m doing all I can do. Well, at least, what my doctor is telling me that I need to do. I don’t wanna sound morose or anything, but I came to terms with the fact that I have a fifty-five percent chance of dying. In the words of Ivan Drago, ‘If I die, I die.’ If I live, then I live. It’s just…”

Mike broke off, a dark look in his eyes. The coldness in his usually warm eyes was unsettling, void of hope. Instinctively, El placed a hand on his shoulder. “It’s just what?”

He sighed. “The people in my life make things hard. Like, I _know_ they don’t mean to, but I know my mom has been crying a lot. The _Rocky_ movies are my dad’s idea of spending time with me. Everyone has been walking on eggshells around me, or telling me not to give up, or telling me who brave that I am—like getting cancer was a choice or something. I’m tired of it. If it was up to me, I would have just opted for the surgery and get it over with.”

“But your doctor—”

“—only recommended chemo because he thinks that it would shrink the tumor to make it easier for them. But they’re going to have to operate regardless. At this point, it just feels like they’re prolonging the inevitable.”

Annoyance, perhaps, anger was boiling inside El. To her, it sounded like he had given up. She understood how frustrated he was. She’d been around frustrated kids exhausted from the chemicals that were pumped in them. She saw the stressed-out parents with bags and shadows under their eyes. The difference between them and Mike was that they didn’t accept death. They fought mentally, and El was sure that was why his doctor had recommended therapy.

“You know what happens when a kid goes through remission or beats cancer at St. Anthony’s?” she asked. Mike glanced over and shrugged. “On their last day of chemo, they get to ring a bell. Like, it almost seems silly that after months or years of treatment, they get handed a bell to ring. But for those kids, it’s the biggest thing in the world for them. They ring the bell, and they all have the same look of overwhelming relief and joy. They also look proud, and you can _feel_ the pride glowing from them. That’s the moment they realize how hard they had been fighting mentally. You know, they never accepted dying as an option, and neither should you. Not until you’re at least eighty. I know willing yourself to live isn’t all it takes, but I do think it helps. So what I’m trying to say is, just deal with it. It sucks, it hurts, it’s exhausting, but don’t give up.”

“Who said I gave up?”

“‘If I die, I die?’” she mocked. “‘Prolonging the inevitable?’ That sounds like the words of a person who gave up.”

Mike didn’t say anything, instead, he was staring thoughtfully at his plate of fries. El wondered if she had overstepped her boundaries. Even if she did, she didn’t care. Life was full of things you didn’t want to hear, but needed to hear no matter how harsh it sounded.

“I guess you’re right,” he mumbled, glancing up at her with a small smile. “I’m too young to accept death.”

“I’m always right,” she said with a wink. “And annoying. You’re going to have so much fun tutoring me!”

“Oh, so that’s why you want me around? So that I could tutor you?” Mike asked with a chuckle.

“No,” she replied. “That’s not the only reason. I’m probably going to need someone to annoy when we go to Northwestern. If the power goes out, I know that I could rely on you to build a potato lamp!”

“Wow. Okay. You’re just jealous because a potato lamp is so much cooler than a papier-mâché volcano!”

“It was a _super_ volcano, butthead!”

She could tell that Mike was about to roll his eyes, but his eyes widened in realization. “Did you know there’s a super volcano at Yellowstone?”

“Yes!” she exclaimed. “I told my dad about it, and I don’t think he understood how devastating things would be if it ever erupted, so I wanted to demonstrate the effects. All that accomplished was our kitchen smelling like vinegar for months and our counters being covered in glue that can’t be removed.”

Mike laughed. “Oh! When we go to Northwestern, if we ever come across any mouth-breathers, we can just set off a papier-mâché super volcano in their dorm!”

“Deal!” she cried, laughing as elation filled her chest at the thought of hanging out with Mike when they got to college.

“What are you two laughing about?” asked Max as she slid into the booth. Her shirt was a bit wet from the sink water, but it was nothing compared to Lucas’ soaking one.

“What the hell happened to you?” Mike asked.

“Mad Max,” replied Lucas, rolling his eyes. “I have no idea why Benny let her back there. The place is soaked.”

“You can’t expect me not to spray you when the sink has a detachable nozzle,” said Max nonchalantly.

El noticed the way Max looked at her boyfriend. Admiration and maybe love was evident. It was kind of sweet, seeing Max look so soft despite her tough demeanor. She couldn’t help but wonder if that was how she looked at Mike. Lucas was still grinning when his eyes finally met El’s.

“Oh, Lucas, this is El. She volunteers at the hospital. Best reader ever, build super volcanos, and needs help with Trig,” said Mike. “El, this is Lucas. He works at Benny’s.”

“That’s all I do?” asked Lucas as he shook El’s hand. “Nice to meet you.”

“Nice to meet you, too.”

“Pretty much,” said Max. “I mean, Lucas also gives us a friend and family discount whenever we come here. Oh! And he screams like a girl!”

“That was one time!”

“Yeah, but you still screamed like a girl,” said Max, turning to El. “I’m not even exaggerating. If Wes Craven heard him scream, he’d ask to record it for background noises in his movies. Right, Mike?”

Mike nodded.

“We were watching _Halloween_ and Michael Myers came out of nowhere!” Lucas exclaimed, blushing.

“Half that movie is Myers coming out of nowhere!” Mike insisted.

“Whatever,” said Lucas. “It only happened one time, and we were, like, fourteen!”

“Aw, don’t get all butthurt, Stalker,” said Max, wrapping her arm around him. “I still love you.”

If they weren’t so cute, El would feel uncomfortable at the way Max and Lucas were staring at each other. Mike, on the other hand, was making gagging noises, causing everyone to look up at him in concern.

“Wow, sorry,” he said, pounding his chest. “I thought I was going to heave.”

“Chemo?” asked Lucas, looking concerned.

“It’s not that,” Mike replied, shaking his head. “It’s…you guys are disgusting!”

Lucas laughed and threw a fry at Mike, while the redhead flipped him off. Mike glanced over at El and looked pleased with himself when he saw her laughing. On the other side of the table, Max opened her mouth to retort, but froze with a staggered expression. She was looking past El, muttering, “That bitch.”

“What—” Lucas broke off, his face a perfect imitation of his girlfriend’s. “Oh…shit.”

“What are you guys—” Mike began to turn around.

“El! Grab his face!” Max cried.

Without thinking, El quickly grabbed Mike’s face, forcing him to look at her. “Ow! What the hell, El?”

“I don’t know!” El exclaimed, confused. “I’m sorry!”

“Mike, you do not want to see what we’re seeing,” said Luke.

Max was turning a deep shade of red, fuming. “That astronomical asshole! Lucas, we’re going to Dustin’s when you get off. I’m going to take Mews’ litterbox and dump it all over that bitch’s lawn!”

“What’s going on?” asked El, tightening her grip on Mike’s face as he tried to squirm out. “Mike, stop! I don’t want to hurt you!”

“You’re…so…strong!” Mike grumbled.

“You’re just weak,” said Max. “But seriously, Wheels. You don’t wanna see this.”

El put Mike in a headlock and turned to see what Max and Lucas were staring at. A few tables away, there was a couple making out in their booth. The boy looked familiar somehow—his face could only be described as prickly, and he looked like a stereotypical mouth-breather/bully that was in every high school movie. The girl was pretty, and when she pulled away from the boy’s mouth, El thought she looked like a nice person. Sort of like the quiet, artsy cheerleader that the nerdy main character liked in every high school movie. But then El’s eyes drifted to the girl’s chest, and she gasped, hearing Max’s voice in her mind, ‘The Twins of Everest…’

The boy moved in for another kiss, and El’s grip on Mike loosened. He put a knee on the seat, and leaned over to see what was going on before she could stop him. It all happened so fast, but at the same time, everything was moving in slow motion. Mike’s curious expression slowly changed to an appalled one.

“Raychael?!”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Disclosure: I recently got a promotion which I thought would be cool. It turns out, it's not. Work has been kicking my ass, and I've been going on way too many work trips across the country. I literally only have two hours to myself every day, which I try to spend writing. Anyway. I didn't intend this chapter to be so long, but Max is so fun to write dialogue for. 
> 
> Future chapters shouldn't be this long, but I can't make any promises. Gotta do what feels right, you know?
> 
> Thank you for reading!


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